Pic'n'mix: RA Summer Exhibition 2019

Cv/Visual Arts Research, Book 233

By: N.P. James

Narrated by: Christopher Selbie

The 251st Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy London in a review recorded at the press view on 3rd June 2019.

This year over 16000 works were submitted to the Summer Exhibition, at a fee of £35 per entry. The hanging committee included artists Jane and Louise Wilson, Hughie O’Donoghue and senior Academician Barbara Rae, and was led by coordinator Jock McFadyen. He described viewing all the digital submissions over a period of two weeks, reducing the number to 2000 physical works. These were accommodated into the gallery for a final selection for the exhibition.

The Summer Exhibition is most popular event in the nation’s cultural calendar, and commercially the most successful. It allows works in all media, print/photography/painting/sculpture/architectural models - with rooms arranged by different Royal Academicians, some of whom, like Barbara Rae’s Arctic room, set a theme to their hang. Each room is anchored by a large, sometimes monumental work with care taken in the harmonious choice of neighbouring pieces.

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