The Permanent Collection on display in the John Madejski Fine Rooms

Free Gallery Tours

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See highlights from the Royal Academy's collection, find out more about the history of the institution and explore its home, Burlington House, on a free guided tour of the John Madejski Fine Rooms. New displays in the rooms for 2010 include landscapes ranging from Thomas Gainsborough's Romantic Landscape to John Constable's masterpiece, The Leaping Horse, which is displayed alongside oil sketches by Constable. >More ...

Capturing the Concept: The Sketchbooks of Sir Nicholas Grimshaw CBE PRA from 1982 to 2007. 6 November 2009 - 31 January 2010, Tennant Room.

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw PRA, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Troy, New York State (concept sketch), 2001. Blue pen on paper. © the artist.

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw is one of Britain's most celebrated architects. His buildings, such as the International Terminal at Waterloo Station in London and the Eden Project in Cornwall, are icons of elegant and inventive design.

This exhibition presents a selection of drawings from the sketchbooks that Grimshaw has used throughout his career, revealing the importance of drawing in the development of his ideas. Including concept sketches for buildings and furniture, detailed drawings of buildings' component parts, plans of sites, and notes for meetings, presentations and speeches, the sketchbooks provide an insight into the working mind of a master architect. >More ...

Searching the Collections

The Royal Academy Collections include paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, historic books, archives, historic photographs and plaster casts. To search any of these categories either use the quick search box above or for more advanced searches visit Search all collections to search across all media, or narrow your search by choosing to search Works of art, Books or Archives. Alternatively you can browse by the Name A-Z
or visit Help.

Currently, only works of art which have been digitised are available on the website. More images are added each month, and in due course all records will be made available.

Works of art are mainly by British artists from the 18th century to the present day. >More...

The Library and Archive form one of the most significant resources for the study of British Art from 1760 onwards. >More...

Academy in the 18th Century

Henry Singleton, The Royal Academicians in General Assembly, oil on canvas, 1795. © Royal Academy of Arts, London.

The Royal Academicians in General Assembly by Henry Singleton was painted in 1795 and shows artists gathered in the Academy's rooms at Somerset House. In this interactive you can explore the people, including Benjamin West PRA, and the first two women members of the Royal Academy, as well as the objects and pictures shown in this painting. >More

Benjamin West PRA - History Painter to the King

Loyd Grossman discusses Benjamin West PRA

Watch a series of interviews in which Loyd Grossman and Curators from the Collection discuss Benjamin West’s meteoric career, his apocalyptic subjects and a satirical print which reveals how West and other Academicians were duped into buying a fake manuscript which purported to reveal the secret techniques of the Old Masters. More>

Constable's paintings

John Constable RA, The Leaping Horse [detail], oil on canvas, 1825. © Royal Academy of Arts, London.

In the section on Constable's Paintings you can explore paintings by John Constable in the Royal Academy Collection. You can also watch videos of MaryAnne Stevens and Michael Rosenthal discussing Constable's work in relation to his observations of different weather conditions on the landscape, the oil sketches he made around Hampstead and his great masterpiece, The Leaping Horse.

Artist of the Month - February 2010

William Hamilton, RA, <I>Vertumnus and Pomona</I>, oil on canvas, ca.1789<br>© Royal Academy of Arts, London.

William Hamilton RA (1751-1801)
Vertumnus and Pomona is a depiction of a tale known mainly from Ovid's Metamorphoses. This work represents a shift in Hamilton's work from portraiture to subject pictures. >More....

Object of the Month - February 2010

Gary Hume RA, <i>American Tan XXVIII1</i>, gloss paint on aluminium, 2008

Gary Hume RA, (b.1962) American Tan XXVIII1, gloss paint on aluminium, 2008
American Tan XXVIII1 is part of a large series of the same title which are thematically related, but also exist autonomously. The title, like this painting, has many layers of meaning and interpretation.>More....

John Frederick Lewis RA: An Album of early drawings by Lewis and his family

J.F. Lewis RA, At Uncle Charles the Binder, watercolour and pen and ink over pencil on wove paper.
In this interactive you can explore over 170 drawings from an album of works by J. F. Lewis and his family. You can also listen to curators Briony Llewellyn and Sally Doust discussing how the album was put together; the importance of this artistic family, Lewis's enthusiasm for drawing animals and his later career as an Orientalist painter. More>