On the Reynolds trail in the RA archive | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts On the Reynolds trail in the RA archive On the Reynolds trail in the RA archive By Amy Macpherson Published 25 February 2015 On the eve of a major exhibition London dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, we delve into the RA’s archive to learn more about the Academy’s founding president. In March 2015, a new exhibition about Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA opens at the Wallace Collection. Appointed the first President of the Royal Academy when it was founded in 1768, Reynolds was considered the foremost portrait painter of the 18th century and his published Discourses on Art are still in print today. The Royal Academy’s archive is a treasure trove of information about Reynolds, so ahead of the exhibition’s opening, we took a trip behind the scenes with Archivist Mark Pomeroy to learn more about this celebrated painter and thinker – and about the early days of the Academy. Video Pall Mall: The Academy's first home Royal Academy Archivist Mark Pomeroy looks through a 19th-century scrapbook to reveal illustrations of the Academy’s first home, and its founder Members.

Video Thomas Gainsborough's deathbed letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds Royal Academy Archivist Mark Pomeroy reads the letter that Thomas Gainsborough wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds on his deathbed, after years of ill-will between the two Academicians. Video A peek inside Joshua Reynolds's diary Royal Academy Archivist Mark Pomeroy takes a look inside one of Joshua Reynolds’s diaries, one of many held in the RA Collection - a fascinating snapshot of 18th century high society. Video A lock of hair Royal Academy Archivist Mark Pomeroy finds a mysterious lock of hair tucked into the back of one of Joshua Reynolds’s 18th-century diaries. Could it be a romantic keepsake?

Sir Joshua Reynolds | artist | 1723 - 1792 | National Gallery, London £ other Make this a monthly donation [{"Amount":20.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-16T20:57:11","DonorDisplayName":"Irina ","DonorLocalAmount":20.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"One of my favourite museums. Hope to visit again."},{"Amount":8.3800,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-09-06T21:24:18","DonorDisplayName":"Andreas","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"EUR","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"It is great to visit for free such a prestigious museum.

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This is to say thank you for your daily guided tours and the free activities you run for children."},{"Amount":5.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-08-19T23:36:01","DonorDisplayName":"Fangbin Liu","DonorLocalAmount":5.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"I like to donate because I love this great museum and the great masterpieces kept in it."},{"Amount":10.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-08-02T04:18:28","DonorDisplayName":"Suzanne Burke","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"Excellent online information for my students!"},{"Amount":10.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-06-21T09:56:01","

DonorDisplayName":"Jane DALY","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":2.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"A national treasure that needs supporting"}] Sir Joshua Reynolds Go to artist A-Z Reynolds was the leading English portraitist of the 18th century.

Through study of ancient and Italian Renaissance art, and of the work of Rembrandt , Rubens and Van Dyck , he brought great variety and dignity to British portraiture. Reynolds was born at Plympton in Devon, the son of a headmaster and fellow of Balliol College, Oxford: a more educated background than that of most painters. He was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portraitist Thomas Hudson, who also trained Wright of Derby . He spent 1749-52 abroad, mainly in Italy, and set up practice in London shortly after his return. He soon established himself as the leading portrait painter, though he was never popular with George III. He was a key figure in the intellectual life of London, and a friend of Dr Johnson. When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, Reynolds was elected its first President. Although believing that history painting was the noblest work of the painter, he had little opportunity to practise it, and his greatest works are his portraits. His paintings are not perfectly preserved due to faulty technique. The carmine reds have faded, leaving flesh-tones paler than intended, and the bitumen used in the blacks has tended to crack.

Share this artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, PRA | Northcote, James | V&A Search the Collections Sir Joshua Reynolds, PRA Northcote, James, born 1746 - died 1831 (artist) Reynolds, Joshua (Sir), born 1723 - died 1792 (artist) Materials and Techniques: Download PDF version This is a portrait of the celebrated British artist Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). It is the work of James Northcote, a painter and a writer. From 1771 to 1776 Northcote was Reynolds’ pupil and assistant. Northcote depended heavily on Reynold's painting style when creating his own pieces and many think his paintings executed after Reynolds' death showed more independent character. In 1813 he published the Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Physical description Portrait, half-length, to right, looking to front. The sitter is wearing dark grey velvet coat, wig and glasses.

Place of Origin Northcote, James, born 1746 - died 1831 (artist) Reynolds, Joshua (Sir), born 1723 - died 1792 (artist) Materials and Techniques Height: 25.75 in estimate, Width: 20.75 in estimate Object history note Extract from Parkinson, Ronald, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860. Victoria & Albert Museum, HMSO, London, 1990. p.xix John Forster (1812-1876) was born in Newcastle, the son of a cattle dealer. Educated at Newcastle Grammar School and University College London, he was a student in the Inner Temple 1828 and qualified as a barrister 1843. Began his career as a journalist as dramatic critic of the True Sun 1832; he later edited the Foreign Quarterly Review (1842-3), the Daily News (1846) and most famously the Examiner (1847-55).

He was the author of numerous works, notably the Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith (1848) and the Life of Charles Dickens (1872-4). He bequeathed his extensive collection of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, prints, drawings, watercolours and oil paintings to the V&A. See also South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks. The Dyce and Forster Collections. With Engravings and Facsimiles. Published for the Committee of Council on Education by Chapman and Hall, Limited, 193, Piccadilly, London. 1880. Chapter V. Biographical Sketch of Mr. Forster. pp.53-73, including 'Portrait of Mr. Forster' illustrated opposite p.53. Historical significance: James Northcote (1746-1831) was born in Plymouth, Devon. He began teaching himself painting whilst he was still in Devon.In 1771 he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy Schools. He was a pupil and resident assistant to Sir Joshua Reynolds, President of the Royal Academy, from 1771 to 1775.

Northcote travelled to Italy in 1777. He remained there until 1780 and was elected into Academies in Florence and Rome. On returning to London he worked predominantly as a portrait artist although he also produced history paintings. He was elected ARA in 1786 and RA in 1787. He exhibited over 200 works at the Royal Academy between 1773 and1828, and also exhibited at the British Institution and the Society of Artists. He was principally a portrait painter, but also painted fancy pictures and historical subjects, including several for Boydell's famous Shakespeare Gallery. Many of his works were engraved. Northcote also contributed to the literature on art by writing biographies of artists. He published the Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1813 and The Life of Titian in1830. There is a portrait drawing of him in the V&A (museum number 3007-1876). The attribution to Northcote of this copy after the Reynolds Self-Portrait dates back at least to the 1893 published catalogue of the Forster collection.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1732-1792) was as a painter and first president of the Royal Academy (founded 1768). He was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson (1701-1779). From 1744 Reynolds began working in both London and Devon. He travelled to Italy with Augustus Keppel (1725-1786) in 1750. Reynolds stayed mainly in Rome, studying the antique sculpture and old and modern masters there. These works would provide prototypes for his works for the rest of his career. By 1753 Reynolds had returned to London where his portrait of Keppel established his career. From 1769 in his lectures at the RA Reynolds developed his theory of the "Grand Manner", encouraging artists to learn from past examples of art and to work on morally elevating subjects. These ideas had been expressed by earlier artists however Reynolds was the first to deliver them in a clear synthesis. Although Reynolds encouraged artists to paint more highly regarded genres of paintings, ideally History, he remained a portrait painter.

During the 1770s he developed within this genre "Fancy Pictures" which create sentimental representations of children. In 1784 he succeeded the artist Allan Ramsay (1713-1784) as portrait painter to King George III (1738-1820). The original, now in the Royal Collection, Windsor, was painted by Reynolds in 1788. It was in possession of the artist’s niece, Mary Palmer, Marchioness of Thomond (1751-1820) who offered it to George IV in 1812. The portrait was exhibited at the British Institution in 1820. There are numerous replicas, studio repetitions, and copies, notably in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood, and the Wellington Museum at Apsley House (see O. Millar The later Georgian pictures in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen, 2 vols, 1969, cat. no.1008; the V&A copy is not mentioned by Millar).

Considering the relationship between Northcote and Reynolds, alongside the popularity of this self-portrait, it is perhaps no surprise that Reynolds’ former pupil chose to make this copy of the painting. Reynolds was about 66 years old when he painted the original of F.24 in 1788. He painted only one later self-portrait. In a letter to George OV dated 1812, Lady Thomond describes the original portrait of her uncle as "The best portrait he ever painted of himseslf" and James Boswell's opinion was that it was "the best representation of my celebrated friend" (See: O. Millar The later Georgian pictures in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen, 2 vols, 1969, cat. no.1008, p.98). In this portrait Reynolds wears a dark grey velvet coat, as in the original by Reynolds. The wig, fashioned to imitate the loose curls of natural hair is a concession to his age and can be seen in a portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) four years earlier. This is the only self-portrait in which the artist has chosen to depict himself wearing glasses.

While Waagen interpreted this and the wig as an indication of the sitter’s genius (Waagen, p.376), it in fact reflects that Reynolds was short sited (See Postle, M and Mannings, D. Sir Joshua Reynolds, cat. 22, p.51). The dark colour of the rich fabric of the sitter’s dress has been noted by Aileen Ribero as agreeing with Lord Chesterfield’s (1755-1815) principles “that a man should be ‘well dressed according to his rank and way of life’” (See: Penny, N. Reynolds, p.320). His dress of a high-collared dark grey velvet frock coat and a wide-lapelled waistcoat, allowing the muslin shirt frill underneath shows a modest interpretation of the fashionable style. References: Waagen, G. Works of Art & Artists in England 3 volumes, London, 1838, vol. II, p.376. Millar, O. The Later Georgian Pictures in the collection of H. M.

the Queen, 2 volumes, London, 1969, pp.98-99, cat. no. 1088. Penny, N. Reynolds, London, 1986, pp.320-322. Mannings, D. and Postle, M., Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, New Haven and London, 2000, volume. I, cat. 1870, pp.469-70, volume II, figure 232, p.198. Descriptive line Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds (PRA). Oil painting by James Northcote, late 18th century Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no) Waagen, G. Works of Art & Artists in England 3 volumes, London, 1838, vol. II, p.376. Graves, A. and Cronin, W.V. A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 4 volumes, London, 1899-1901, volume III, p.43.

Millar, O. The Later Georgian Pictures in the collection of H. M. the Queen, 2 volumes, London, 1969, pp.98-99, cat. no. 1088. Penny, N. Reynolds, London, 1986, pp.320-322. Mannings, D. and Postle, M., Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, New Haven and London, 2000, volume. I, cat. 1870, pp.469-70, volume II, figure 232, p.198. Production Note A copy after a Self-Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds Materials Sir Joshua Reynolds, Liverpool museums Sir Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1723 - 1792 About the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds is one of the best-known names in British art. He was one of the great portraitists of Europe in the second half of the 18th century. His works and his fame spread across the continent through prints of his paintings.

He was also the first President of the Royal Academy, founded in 1768. This institution, under the patronage of King George III, played a key role in the professionalisation of art in Britain. It gave artists greater social and intellectual status and created a 'national school'. Reynolds, although he actually distrusted the politics of Royal patronage, was almost universally perceived by his contemporaries as the figurehead of the Academy. His fame as an artist was indivisible from his fame as 'the President'. Reynolds, born in 1723, came from Devon. His father was a clergyman and master of the local grammar school, so he was brought up in an atmosphere of learning. His love of books and philosophical debate remained one of his strongest characteristics throughout his life, and he was friendlier with literary men, such as Doctor Johnson, James Boswell and Oliver Goldsmith, than he was with his fellow-artists. His strongest impulse as an artist lay in proving that painting was one of the liberal arts, whose greatness came from the thought that went into it, rather than a craft or skill. Technically, Reynolds was a flawed artist, as many of his contemporaries came to realise.

He was never a great draughtsman. He disguised his limitations as a painter under a liking for experimentation with colours and glazes. He justified this to himself as a way of recreating the styles of the Old Masters. This was a key part of Reynolds's intellectual stance. Regarding the taste of the British public for art as limited, he believed that by imitating the Old Masters he would help educate patrons. But realistically, he also recognised that their taste could not be 'improved' overnight. He continued to work largely in the field of portraits, which were what British patrons most wanted. For a long time he limited the way he imitated the artists of the past, only gradually expanding his repertoire. He was annoyed when younger rivals such as Gainsborough and Romney rocked the boat, even while he recognised their abilities. After he was chosen as the first President of the Royal Academy, Reynolds felt under pressure to adopt a more orthodox approach to history painting, which academic theory regarded as the highest branch of art. Before 1768, he had contented himself with adopting a 'historical' style in a number of his most prestigious portraits, ones which were likely to be seen by a large number of people and might be engraved as prints.

The Lady Lever's full-length ' Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll ' (1758-60) is one of the most celebrated examples of this, with the figure's air of a classical sculpture and its subtle allusions to Venus. However, from around 1770, Reynolds began regularly to paint actual mythological subjects. In ' Venus Chiding Cupid ' Venus appears as herself, the Goddess of Love, rather than as a famous beauty at the court of George III. Sir Joshua Reynolds | British painter | Britannica.com Sir Joshua Reynolds William Hogarth Sir Joshua Reynolds, (born July 16, 1723, Plympton, Devon , England —died February 23, 1792, London ), portrait painter and aesthetician who dominated English artistic life in the middle and late 18th century. Through his art and teaching, he attempted to lead British painting away from the indigenous anecdotal pictures of the early 18th century toward the formal rhetoric of the continental Grand Style. With the founding of the Royal Academy in 1768, Reynolds was elected its first president and knighted by King George III .

Sir Joshua Reynolds, detail of self-portrait, oil on panel, 1780; in the Royal Academy of Arts, … Royal Academy of Arts, London Early life Reynolds attended the Plympton grammar school of which his father, a clergyman, was master. The young Reynolds became well read in the writings of classical antiquity and throughout his life was to be much interested in literature, counting many of the finest British authors of the 18th century among his closest friends. Reynolds early aspired to become an artist, and in 1740 he was apprenticed for four years in London to Thomas Hudson , a conventional portraitist and the pupil and son-in-law of Jonathan Richardson. In 1743 he returned to Devon and began painting at Plymouth naval portraits that reveal his inexperience. Returning to London for two years in 1744, he began to acquire a knowledge of the old masters and an independent style marked by bold brushwork and the use of impasto, a thick surface texture of paint, such as in his portrait of Captain the Honourable John Hamilton (1746).

Back in Devon in 1746, he painted a large group portrait of the Eliot family (c. 1746/47), which clearly indicates that he had studied the large-scale portrait of the Pembroke family (1634–35) by the Flemish Baroque painter Sir Anthony Van Dyck , whose style of portrait painting influenced English portraiture throughout the 18th century. In 1749 Reynolds sailed with his friend Augustus Keppel to Minorca, one of the Balearic Islands off the Mediterranean coast of Spain. A fall from a horse detained him for five months and permanently scarred his lip—the scar being a prominent feature in his subsequent self-portraits. From Minorca he went to Rome, where he remained for two years, devoting himself to studying the great masterpieces of ancient Greco-Roman sculpture and of Italian painting. The impressions that he retained from this visit were to inspire his paintings and his Discourses for the rest of his life, for he felt that it was by allying painting with scholarship that he could best achieve his ambition of raising the status of his profession back in England.

While returning home via Florence, Bologna, and Venice, he became absorbed by the compositions and colour of the great Renaissance Venetian painters of the 16th century: Titian, Jacopo Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese . The Venetian tradition’s emphasis on colour and the effect of light and shading had a lasting influence on Reynolds, and, although all his life he preached the need for young artists to study the sculptural definition of form characteristic of Florentine and Roman painters, his own works are redolent of the Venetian style. Later years Leap Second In 1753 Reynolds settled in London, where he was to live for the rest of his life. His success was assured from the first, and by 1755 he was employing studio assistants to help him execute the numerous portrait commissions he received. The early London portraits have a vigour and naturalness about them that is perhaps best exemplified in a likeness of Honourable Augustus Keppel (1753–54). The pose is not original, being a reversal of the Apollo Belvedere , an ancient Roman copy of a mid-4th-century-bc Hellenistic statue Reynolds had seen in the Vatican.

But the fact that the subject (who was a British naval officer) is shown striding along the seashore introduced a new kind of vigour into the tradition of English portraiture. In these first years in London, Reynolds’s knowledge of Venetian painting is very apparent in such works as the portraits of Lord Cathcart (1753/54) and Lord Ludlow (1755). Of his domestic portraits, those of Nelly O’Brien (1760–62) and of Georgiana, Countess Spencer, and her daughter (1761) are especially notable for their tender charm and careful observation. Art & Architecture: Fact or Fiction? After 1760 Reynolds’s style became increasingly classical and self-conscious. As he fell under the influence of the classical Baroque painters of the Bolognese school of the 17th century and the archaeological interest in Greco-Roman antiquity that was sweeping Europe at the time, the pose and clothes of his sitters took on a more rigidly antique pattern, in consequence losing much of the sympathy and understanding of his earlier works.

Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies There were no public exhibitions of contemporary artists in London before 1760, when Reynolds helped found the Society of Artists and the first of many successful exhibitions was held. The patronage of George III was sought, and in 1768 the Royal Academy was founded. Although Reynolds’s painting had found no favour at court, he was the obvious candidate for the presidency, and the king confirmed his election and knighted him. Reynolds guided the policy of the academy with such skill that the pattern he set has been followed with little variation ever since. The yearly Discourses that he delivered at the academy clearly mirrored many of his own thoughts and aspirations , as well as his own problems of line versus colour and public and private portraiture, and gave advice to those beginning their artistic careers. From 1769 nearly all of Reynolds’s most important works appeared in the academy. In certain exhibitions he included historical pieces, such as Ugolino (1773), which were perhaps his least successful works. Many of his child studies are tender and even amusing, though now and again the sentiment tends to be excessive.

Two of the most enchanting are Master Crewe as Henry VIII (1775–76) and Lady Caroline Scott as ‘Winter’ (1778). His most ambitious portrait commission was the Family of the Duke of Marlborough (1777). Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children, oil on canvas by Sir … Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.95 In 1781 Reynolds visited Flanders and Holland, where he studied the work of the great Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens . This seems to have affected his own style, for in the manner of Rubens’s later works the texture of his picture surface becomes far richer. This is particularly true of his portrait of the duchess of Devonshire and her daughter (1786). Reynolds was never a mere society painter or flatterer. It has been suggested that his deafness gave him a clearer insight into the character of his sitters, the lack of one faculty sharpening the use of his eyes.

His vast learning allowed him to vary his poses and style so often that the well-known remark of Thomas Gainsborough , “Damn him, how various he is!” is entirely understandable. In 1782 Reynolds had a paralytic stroke, and about the same time he was saddened by bickerings within the Royal Academy. Seven years later his eyesight began to fail, and he delivered his last Discourse at the academy in 1790. He died in 1792 and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Portrait of Charlotte Grote, oil on canvas by Joshua Reynolds, 18th century. 75 × 62 cm. In a private collection Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Reynolds preferred the company of men of letters to that of his fellow artists and was friends with Samuel Johnson , Edmund Burke , and Oliver Goldsmith , among others. He never married, and his house was kept for him by his sister Frances. Sir Joshua Reynolds, oil on canvas by Gilbert Stuart, 1784; in the National Gallery of Art, … Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Andrew W.

Mellon Collection, 1942.8.21 Reynolds’s state portraits of the king and queen were never considered a success, and he seldom painted for them; but the prince of Wales patronized him extensively, and there were few distinguished families or individuals who did not sit for him. Nonetheless, some of his finest portraits are those of his intimate friends and of fashionable women of questionable reputation. Unfortunately, Reynolds’s technique was not always entirely sound, and many of his paintings have suffered as a result. After his visit to Italy, he tried to produce the effects of Tintoretto and Titian by using transparent glazes over a monochrome underpainting, but the pigment he used for his flesh tones was not permanent and even in his lifetime began to fade, causing the overpale faces of many surviving portraits. In the 1760s Reynolds began to use more extensively bitumen or coal substances added to pigments. This practice proved to be detrimental to the paint surface. Though a keen collector of old-master drawings, Reynolds himself was never a draftsman, and indeed few of his drawings have any merit whatsoever.

Trending Topics About the RA | Royal Academy of Arts Benjamin West PRA, Self-portrait of Benjamin West PRA, 1793. Oil on panel. 1015 X 1320 mm. Photo R.A./John Hammond © Royal Academy of Arts. An American in London The story of our second President is a fascinating one. Benjamin West was born in Pennsylvania in 1738 and grew up in a world where art was little known. But with pioneering spirit, he travelled to Europe for his education and found success in Rome. Later arriving in England, he became a close friend of the King and his ‘History Painter’. He never returned to America but is considered the founding father of the American school of painting. He was so popular that he was elected President by his fellow members with just one opposing vote.

He also had a first-rate eye for talent and once comforted a down-hearted young Constable after he’d had a work rejected by the Academy with these words, “Don’t be disheartened young man, we shall hear more of you again; you must have loved nature before you could have painted this.” After Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA, 1723 - 1792, Portrait of Angelica Kauffman RA, Published by John Boydell, 3 September 1780.. Engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi, RA. Photo: © Royal Academy of Arts, London. Women at the RA We have a somewhat chequered history when it comes to equality of the sexes. Although Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman flew the flag for women in 1768, it took another 168 years before another woman was elected as a full Academician, Laura Knight in 1936. In 1879, the Council of the day came to the conclusion that our original Instrument of Foundation did not allow for women RAs. Eventually, they relented and passed a resolution to make women eligible, but only on the condition of restricted privileges.

A few years later in 1913, we invoked the wrath of the suffragettes and a demonstration was held in the galleries. One woman slashed a portrait of Henry James by Sargent while another hacked at a painting by George Clausen. Catastrophe was also narrowly averted when one protestor attempted to start a fire in the toilets. Joseph Parkin Mayall, Sir John Everett Millais PRA, c. 1884. Photogravure. 166 x 219 mm. Published by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington. From: F.G. Stephens (ed.), Artists at home photographed by J.P. Mayall, London 1884, pl.[6] Photo: RA © Copyright protected. The child prodigy The beginning of the Victorian period saw us admit our youngest ever student to the RA Schools, the ten year old John Everett Millais in 1839. He was immediately given the rather unoriginal nickname ‘The Child’. He went on to become one of the most successful artists of the 19th century and a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood hoped to emulate the art of late medieval and early Renaissance Europe, characterised by intricate detail, bright colours and truth to nature. Although the movement’s activity lasted little more than five years, its influence on British art continues to this day. In 1896, Millais was elected President of the RA, but sadly, it was doomed to be a short tenure. He was in poor health at the time, and just six months after his election he was buried in Painters’ Corner of St Paul’s Cathedral. Our story Italian Art The first blockbusters One of our founding principles was to hold an annual exhibition that anyone could enter, and anyone could visit. Today, it’s called the Summer Exhibition and it has taken place every year since 1769, including during both World Wars. From the late 19th century, we began to hold international loan exhibitions. One in particular that went down in history was our Italian Art exhibition in 1930. The galleries were flooded with masterpieces, including Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Raphael’s La Donna Velata and Donatello’s David – but it didn’t pass without controversy.

Highly politicised, it was attended by Mussolini as a way of furthering the cause of Fascism. Sir Edwin Lutyens PRA and Royal Academy Planning Committee, Proposed re-modelling of Hyde Park Corner, London: bird's-eye perspective, 1942. Carbon pencil, pen & ink and coloured crayons. 533 x 837 mm. Drawn by an artist in the Office of Philip Dalton Hepworth. Photo: RA © Royal Academy of Arts, London. Reimagining London Our doors remained open during World War Two, just as they had during the First World War, but our President at the time, Edwin Lutyens, had some radical ideas about how London should be rebuilt after the conflict. Some of the schemes proposed in the RA Planning Committee’s London Replanned report, included a road bridge across the Thames that would obliterate Charing Cross Station, an enormous roundabout behind St Martin-in-the-Fields and the demolition of the existing Opera House in Covent Garden to make way for a new music and dramatic centre.

Lutyens’ ideas may have been unpopular with most, but our next President, Alfred Munnings, didn’t do much better in endearing himself to his colleagues or the public… Edwin Whitney-Smith, Bust of Sir Alfred Munnings PRA, 1946. 578 x 533 mm. Bronze on wooden base. Photo: RA / Neil Greentree © Royal Academy of Arts, London. Famous last words Alfred Munnings took office in 1944. He became infamous when during one RA dinner, he drunkenly began to berate modern art and aspects of the Academy itself. After slating Picasso, he moved on to London County Council, who he criticised for exhibiting modern sculpture in Battersea Park, and the Tate for showing Matisse. To make matters worse, the whole tirade was being broadcast live by the BBC. Munnings had already decided to resign before he made the speech – and made sure he went out with a bang. Our story Sir Hugh Casson PRA, Why not be a Friend, c. 1980. Drawing printed on letterhead paper. Photo: Royal Academy of Arts.

Making new Friends The 1970s saw a period of renewal, with the election of one of our most enterprising Presidents, Sir Hugh Casson. Casson had always been one to embrace change and in 1948, he had been appointed Director of Architecture at the Festival of Britain. Relishing the challenge, he set out to celebrate peace and modernity through working with other young architects, 39-year-old Leslie Martin for example, who designed the modernist Royal Festival Hall. Casson’s role in the Festival of Britain was a huge success and he was knighted in 1952. As President of the RA, he began our Friends of the RA membership scheme in 1977, the first of its kind in Europe. Our Friends now number over 90,000. They come to all our exhibitions for free, enjoy all day access to the Keeper’s House, are invited to special events and are sent RA Magazine three times a year. They’re some of our most loyal supporters: we’d be lost without them.

Sackler Galleries CROP Photo: Dennis Gilbert A new view of the RA In 1991, we opened The Sackler Wing, designed by Royal Academicians Norman Foster and Spencer de Grey. With its sleek glass staircase and light-filled atrium, The Sackler Wing introduced elegant new gallery spaces to replace the Victorian Diploma Galleries and is a sensitive union of old and new. The landing before you enter these galleries is also where you will find Michelangelo’s Taddei Tondo, his only marble sculpture in the UK and one of the most treasured works in our Collection. Foster himself has spoken of how the design of our Sackler Wing helped lay the groundwork for later projects, including the Great Court at the British Museum, demonstrating “a clear philosophy about how you make modern intervention in historical structures” and create “a meaningful relationship between old and new”. The Royal Academy’s north-facing Entrance, Burlington Gardens, in 2018 Image: Hayes Davidson An Academy for the 21st century In 1998, we bought 6 Burlington Gardens, a beautiful listed building originally designed by Sir James Pennethorne RA for the University of London in the 19th century.

Since 2012, we have hosted exciting contemporary shows in these new galleries, showcasing the work of our Academicians from Richard Rogers to Allen Jones . For our anniversary in 2018 we have exciting plans to link Burlington House with Burlington Gardens. This will open up the RA as never before, transforming our historic buildings – and inviting Friends and visitors old and new to celebrate with us. Come 2018, you will also find a 300-seat lecture theatre, our first dedicated learning centre and totally refurbished gallery spaces, one of which will be devoted to our historic Collection. Sir Joshua Reynolds facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Sir Joshua Reynolds COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. Sir Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the outstanding intellectual force among English artists of his age, vir tually created a new type of portraiture by interpreting the humanity of his sitters in terms of the heroic tradition of Old Master history painting.

Joshua Reynolds was born on July 16, 1723, at Plympton, Devon, the third son and seventh child of the Reverend Samuel Reynolds, master of the Plympton Grammar School and sometime fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. Joshua was enabled by education, ability, and inclination to move all his adult life with ease and distinction in literary and learned circles. A vocation for art was confirmed by reading as a boy Jonathan Richardson's Essay on the Theory of Painting (1715), with its program for restoring portraiture to the dignity of high art, and at the age of 17 Joshua was apprenticed to Richardson's son-in-law, Thomas Hudson, in London. Reynolds set up on his own in 1743 and practiced in Plympton and London. His work of this period shows the influence of Anthony Van Dyck and the innovations introduced by William Hogarth, then at the height of his powers. In 1749 Reynolds sailed for Italy as the guest of Commodore Augustus Keppel. In Rome, Reynolds studied the Old Masters with a single-mindedness unmatched by any earlier English painter.

His only diversion was a small number of caricature paintings in the manner of his fellow Devonian Thomas Patch. Raphael was Reynolds's hero, but on his way back to England he visited northern Italy and came under the spell of the Venetian painters and Correggio. Reynolds settled in London in 1753 and established his reputation as the foremost portrait painter with Captain the Hon. Augustus Keppel (1753-1754), the first of a long series of portraits ennobled by a borrowed pose, here taken from the Apollo Belvedere. He used borrowed attitudes in two ways: as a mode of elevation and as a species of wit. As Horace Walpole noted, both usages are controlled by intellect and taste, manifested in the aptness of his application to the sitter's character, achievement, or role in society. After his election as foundation president of the Royal Academy in 1768 until his death in London on Feb. 23, 1792, Reynolds's life was too closely intertwined with the artistic, literary, and social history of his time for a summary to be adequate.

A small group of portraits of men of genius with whom he was intimate, headed by Dr. Johnson, is unique in European art in that each is accompanied by a written character sketch which is a masterpiece of psychological assessment. Reynolds delivered 15 discourses to the members and students of the Royal Academy between 1769 and 1790. They upheld the ideal theory in art and constituted the classic formulation of academic doctrine after more than 2 centuries of debate. Reynolds's main types of portraiture commemorate naval and military heroes, civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries, the English landowning oligarchy in both its public and private aspects, actors and actresses, and children in fanciful roles, related in their vein of sentiment to "fancy pictures" like the Age of Innocence (1788).

His most ambitious translation of a subject picture into a portrait is the group of the daughters of Sir William Montgomery, the Graces Adorning a Term of Hymen (1774), a Miltonian bridal masque in which the rite of worship to the God of Wedlock is performed by three famous beauties, one recently married, another preparing for marriage, and the third still to be betrothed. Among the finest of his heroicized military portraits in a battle setting are Colonel Banastre Tarleton (1782) and George Augustus Eliott, Lord Heathfield (1788). A visit to Flanders and Holland in 1781 renewed Reynolds's enthusiasm for Peter Paul Rubens and was followed by a decade of prodigious creative energy. To this final phase belong most of Reynolds's history paintings, including those commissioned for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery and the Infant Hercules (1788), commissioned by the Empress of Russia. Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse (1784) shows the actress flanked by emblems of Open and Secret Murder and assembles motives borrowed from Michelangelo, with whose name he closed his last discourse.

As the foundation president of the Royal Academy, Reynolds guided its destinies in its momentous first phase, devoting his immense influence to the single goal of forming a national school of history painters choosing their exalted themes not only from the Bible and classical antiquity but also from Shakespeare and the national past. Courteous, affable, and open to new ideas, he steered a liberal and tactful course and stamped a character of devotion to high art on the institution that lasted into the age of J. M. W. Turner and even beyond. Further Reading The definitive edition of Reynold's Discourses on Art was edited by Robert R. Wark (1959). Frederick Whiley Hilles edited Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1929) and Reynolds's Portraits (1952), which contains written character sketches of Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, and others. The monumental study of Charles Robert Leslie and Tom Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds (2 vols., 1865), should be supplemented by Frederick Whiley Hilles, The Literary Career of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1936).

See also Derek Hudson, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Personal Study (1958). The best-illustrated and most critical study of Reynolds's art is Ellis K. Waterhouse, Reynolds (1941). Additional Sources The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright The Columbia University Press Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1723–92, English portrait painter, b. Devonshire. Long considered historically the most important of England's painters, by his learned example he raised the artist to a position of respect in England. Reynolds studied painting in London and in 1742 began as a portraitist in Devon. He was able to study the Italian masters when Commodore Keppel, a friend, took him to Italy in 1749. After three years of study and travel, Reynolds returned and took London by storm. Intensely ambitious, Reynolds used his wit and charm as well as his artistic talents to advance himself, and within a year he was besieged with portrait commissions and was employing assistants. He maintained a gallery not only of his own works but also those of old masters whose paintings he bought and sold. He entertained the world of wealth and fashion and the great literary figures of the day.

When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, Reynolds was inevitably elected president and was knighted the following year. His annual discourses before the Academy have literary distinction and are a significant exposition of academic style, propounding eclectic generalization over direct observation, and allusion to the classical past over the present. The Grand Style, thus proclaimed, was of enormous influence in the development of English portraiture. At 59, Reynolds had a paralytic stroke but recovered sufficiently to continue his work for several years. Before he lost his sight (1789), his style had become warmer and less formal, having been influenced by Rubens. Reynolds painted more than 2,000 portraits and historical paintings, depicting almost every notable person of his time. He often used experimental painting methods, which resulted in works now poorly preserved. His portraits of Commodore Keppel, Dr. Johnson, Lady Caroline Howard, Mrs. Siddons, Sterne, Goldsmith, Garrick, Gibbon, and Edmund Burke are among the many fine examples that are of historical interest. Reynolds's works are in nearly every major museum in the western world.

He is best represented in the National Gallery, London, but examples of his work are to be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Cleveland Museum of Art; and the Art Institute of Chicago. See his letters (ed. by F. W. Hilles, 1929) and his Discourses on Art (ed. by R. Wark, 1959, repr. 1965); studies by E. Waterhouse (1941 and 1973). Cite this article The Oxford Companion to British History © The Oxford Companion to British History 2002, originally published by Oxford University Press 2002. Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1723–92). Portrait painter, born in Devon to a scholarly and clerical family. Educated at his father's school, Reynolds showed early skill in drawing and portraiture and by 1743 was in practice on his own. His portraits already included classical allusions which gained him many patrons among the grand tourist gentry. In 1749 he travelled to Europe , spending two years in Italy studying the old masters and making many influential friends.

On his return to London his great success allowed him to move in circles of intellect and wealth. Almost every person of note in the second half of the 18th cent. had their portrait painted by Reynolds. In 1764 he formed the Club, whose members included Samuel Johnson , Edmund Burke , Oliver Goldsmith , and Adam Smith . In 1768, on the founding of the Royal Academy, Reynolds was the obvious choice for president, although the patron, George III, did not like his pictures. In 1769 he was knighted and awarded an honorary doctorate at Oxford. Among Reynolds's finest portraits are those of the courtesan Nelly O'Brien (1760–2), of his fellow-club members Goldsmith (1770), Baretti (1774), and Gibbon (1780), and the grand painting of Heathfield , defender of Gibraltar (1788). Between 1769 and 1790 he wrote and delivered an influential series of Discourses on art.

June Cochrane Caleb Whitefoord | Reynolds, Joshua (Sir) | V&A Search the Collections Height: 15.5 in estimate, Width: 13 in estimate Object history note Bequeathed to the Department of Science and Art, South Kensington Museums in 1859 by the Reverand Alexander Dyce. The painting was bequeathed as part of the Dyce collection of 3347 works of art, including paintings, miniatures, watercolours and prints as well as his library of 14,000 volumes. Reverend Alexander Dyce (1798-1869), literary scholar and art collector, was the son of a major, later lieutenant general in the Madras infantry of the East India Company. Raised by two maternal aunts in Aberdeen following his parent’s departure for India in 1799, Dyce read classics at Exeter College, Oxford. At his father’s insistence he was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1823, having rejected a career in the East India Company. He developed a career in publishing by translating Greek texts. However he is probably best known for his editions of sixteenth and seventeenth century poetry.

Dyce collected many rare books covering English, Italian and Classical literature. His collection of paintings and works on paper is very varied. In his collection of paintings, Dyce indulged his enthusiasm for the theatre, acquiring portraits of leading actors, while his drawings collection focuses on Old Master drawings from European schools. The Dyce bequest was one of the earliest of a collection of fine art given to the museum. It followed the Sheepshanks collection, which was given to the museum two years earlier in 1857. While the Sheepshanks collection was mainly of contemporary Victorian art, Dyce’s collection focused on British eighteenth and early nineteenth art as well as paintings from Italian, Dutch and Flemish Schools. This bequest therefore helped to broaden the collection, which the museum was already beginning to do by purchasing works from British and Continental Schools. Historical significance: Sir Joshua Reynolds (1732-1792) worked predominantly as a portrait painter and was the first president of the Royal Academy (founded 1768). He was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson (1701-1779).

From 1744 Reynolds began working in both London and Devon. He travelled to Italy with Augustus Keppel in n1750. Reynolds stayed mainly in Rome, studying the antique sculpture and old and modern masters there. These works would provide prototypes for his works for the rest of his career. By 1753 Reynolds had returned to London where his portrait of Keppel established his career. From 1769 in his lectures at the Royal Academy Reynolds developed his theory of the "Grand Manner", encouraging artists to learn from past examples of art and to work on morally elevating subjects. These ideas had been expressed by earlier artists however Reynolds was the first to deliver them in a clear synthesis. Although Reynolds encouraged artists to paint more highly regarded genres of paintings, ideally History, he remained a portrait painter. During the 1770s he developed within this genre "Fancy Pictures" creating sentimental representations of children. In 1784 he succeeded the artist Allan Ramsay (1713-1784) as portrait painter to King George III (1738-1820).

Caleb Whitefoord FRS FSA (1734-1810) began his career as a wine merchant. As well as being a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he became a neighbour and friend of the scientist, statesman and philosopher Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), resulting in his acting as an intermediary between the United States and Britain during the peace negotiations of 1782-3. He also contributed political essays and comments, often wittily satirical, to newspapers. His collection of paintings was sold 4-5 May 1810. Acquired by the Rev. Alexander Dyce for his collection of eminent men of letters and other worthies, the painting was listed under the 'painters unknown' in the 1874 Dyce catalogue. An almost identical version is in the National Portrait Gallery (catalogued as studio of Reynolds and dated to 1773-4, feigned oval 74.3 x 62.2 cm, museum number NPG 1400). Both works are presumably studio repetitions of the portrait exhibited by Reynolds at the Royal Academy in 1775 (no.

236 Caleb Whitefoord, private collection), listed in the artist's account book in October 1775 with a payment from 'Mr. Whitford' of £36-15-0, or 35 guineas, the usual cost of a bust or the 'three-quarter' (that is, a canvas measuring about three quarters of a yard, or 27 inches high) by Reynolds at this time (see Malcolm Cormack 'The ledgers of Sir Joshua Reynolds', Walpole Society XLII, 1968-70, p.166). Other portraits of Whitefoord include a Reynolds of 1782 once owned by Charles Whitefoord and engraved in mezzotint by T.

Jones in 1793 (Museum number 24252), an engraving by S.W.Reynolds of 1795 (impression in the V&A also from the Dyce Bequest, Dyce 3071), a sketch by George Dance of July, 1795 and etched by William Daniell (impression in the British Museum), an anonymous painting of about 1800 in the Royal Society of Arts, a drawing by Richard Cosway which was stipple engraved by P. Conde for the European Magazine in 1810 (impression in the V&A), and the Gilbert Stuart of 1782 in the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, USA. Whiteford also appears in James Gillray's 1807 print The Connoisseurs (impression and preliminary drawings at the V&A) and David Wilkies painting of 1815 The Letter of Introduction (National Gallery of Scotland). In their catalogue of Reynolds, Mannings and Postle list only one portrait of Caleb Whiteford by the artist (Private collection, Mannings and Postle cat. 1876, plate 1090).

Although smaller in scale, being only a bust portrait, a comparison of these portraits suggests that Dyce 68 is related to catalogue 1876 in the Mannings and Postle catalogue. In both these portraits the artist shows Caleb Whiteford in the same posture, turning to look over his right shoulder. The light yellow waistcoat, edged with gold braid, is unbuttoned to reveal the lace cravat underneath. In both these portraits the sitter is shown without a wig. Mannings and postle note in their entry on catalogue 1876 that there are numerous copies after this portrait, however they do not list the Dyce 68 as one of these copies. It is possible that this is a smaller studio copy of the portrait painted in the early 1770s. This is one of three paintings by Reynolds that entered the South Kensington Museums as part of the Alexander Dyce bequest in 1859. The other works by Reynolds from the Dyce collection are Portrait of a Lady, said to be Miss Reynolds (Dyce 17) and The entrance to Mr. Thrale's Park: Streatham (Dyce.18).

While demonstrating the variety of his oeuvre, from landscape to portrait, these works are all related to the intimate circle of Reynold’s friends and family. Reynolds was a close friend of the Thrales, painting a number of portraits of the family and their friends, and it is likely The entrance to Mr. Thrale's Park: Streatham (Dyce.18) is the result of one of his many visits to the estate. The artist is also known to have been a friend of Caleb Whiteford. References: Mannings, D. and Postle, M., Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, New Haven and London, 2000, volume I, cat. 1876, volume II, figure 1090. Descriptive line Oil painting, 'Caleb Whitefoord (1734-1810), Wit and Satirical Poet', after Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA Materials Royal Academy of Arts facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Royal Academy of Arts The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press Royal Academy of Arts, London, the national academy of art of England, founded in 1768 by George III at the instigation of Sir William Chambers and Benjamin West. Sir Joshua Reynolds was the Academy's first president, holding the office until his death in 1792. His Discourses defined the scope of the Academy. The king himself chose the original 36 Academicians and fixed the number at 40. Until 1867 their successors were elected by the Academicians only and since that date by the Academicians and associates, whose number was increased from 20 to 30 in 1876, together. Since its inception the Academy, a notably conservative body, has maintained biennial exhibitions—one being of the works of masters of the past and one of contemporary art; has maintained a free school (women students have been admitted only since 1861); and has administered funds (partly derived from its exhibitions) for the relief of distressed artists and their families and for prizes and scholarships.

In 1867 the academy was given a lease of 999 years on Burlington House and the adjoining gardens, where its galleries and school have since been erected. See W. R. M. Lamb, The Royal Academy (2d ed. 1952). Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. MLA The Oxford Companion to British History © The Oxford Companion to British History 2002, originally published by Oxford University Press 2002. Royal Academy of Arts (London). In 1768 the artist Benjamin West , with the architect William Chambers , approached George III for his approval of a national academy to foster a school of art, set standards of good taste, and provide for the free exhibition of works of excellence. The first president was Sir Joshua Reynolds , whose famous Discourses, delivered over a period of 20 years, laid down the basic concepts of the academy which was to form ‘a repository for the great examples of the Art’, an important function before the establishment of the National Gallery in 1824. During the 19th cent. the academy was slow to accept innovation and its reputation declined.

Since the mid-20th cent., policy has been more liberal and the annual summer exhibition a popular event, although whether it fulfils the function of exhibiting the best contemporary work is open to question. June Cochrane

Question: Sir Joshua Reynolds was the first president of which institution, founded in 1768?
Answer: THE ROYAL ACADEMY