Start or end the day with one of our 10-minute sketchbook activities.
Draw together in a pair or team and explore ideas of leadership, decision-making, ownership and respect.
Use collage to bring together the different elements of a story: actors, symbols, and setting.
Use paint to express an emotion you’ve recently felt.
Learn about how to depict the human body by drawing your friend.
Welcome in elements of risk and accident in this ink-blowing activity and try making it into a mindful practice.
Record the outdoor world, both man-made and natural, by capturing many different textures.
Our teaching resources have been made with and for teachers. Use art by our artists and from our collection to teach your students about the climate, citizenship, emotions, and more.
Bring lessons from the art studio into the classroom using art from our artists and collection.
Explore citizenship and your place in the world using art from our artists and collection.
Using art from our artists and collection, learn about the climate crisis and how artists have responded to a changing world.
Use art from our artists and collection to discover how artists have conveyed human feelings, reactions and sensations.
Use art from our artists and collection to discover how artists and architects have worked with the body.
From the narratives artworks depict to the lives of artists, stories are at the heart of art.
Use art by our artists and from our collection to teach your students about art from our collection. We’re currently working on new secondary teaching resources. Tell us what you’d like to see.
Our activities for young people include works from our collection and works by attRAct students. Our activities provide information and inspiration for coursework or independent learning.
The culture of learning from the work of other artists has a long history. Learn how to appropriate, quote, sample, and copy in your compositions.
Your challenge is to design your very own art gallery or museum—your institution.
Royal Academicians like Eileen Agar and Cornelia Parker are well known for their use of found objects. Try using found objects in your own art work.
Learn more about what sustainability can mean and design your own green gallery.
Throughout history, artists have made likenesses of rulers, friends, strangers, lovers, and themselves. Find out more and create your own imagined self-portrait.
The history of words and art is long and intermingled. Inspired by artists, start exploring art through writing.
Instead of throwing cereal containers and milk cartons away, use them to make a miniature house with character.
Try making a painting inspired by words like Summer Exhibition 2021 artist Patrick Moses.
Experiment with making miniature architectural models using just toothpicks and plasticine.
Have a go at making your own paint with eggs, make-up, spices and chalk.
Learn how to make your own paper from scratch using a photo frame, a pair of old tights and scrap paper.
Follow these instructions to create your own light installation at home, using a simple DIY projector.
Make your own unique and colourful prints using felt-tip pens and an old baking dish.
Try these two simple techniques and experiment with using chalk to make colourful abstract prints.
Follow these instructions to design your own puppets and put on a play in a cardboard theatre.
Follow these simple instructions to make a mini loom and have a go at weaving with recycled plastic bags.
Experiment with architectural collage and have a go at redesigning your street for future generations.
Follow these easy instructions to brighten up your organic fabrics using natural, home-made dye.
Be inspired by the work of Phyllida Barlow RA and create a sustainable sculpture from reusable household rubbish. Build it, play around with decoration and then recycle the parts.
Venture outside to hunt for dry leaves, flowers and twigs so you can construct your own brushes and play with mark-making using natural, foraged materials.
Tailor art activities to your needs by adapting the tools you use. Follow our step-by-step way to extend or improve the grip on your pencils, paintbrushes and pens.
Why not put your stamp on the festive season with our cookie cutter Christmas prints and Funky Foam reliefs?
Have a go at using a stencil to carve a pumpkin this Halloween. These stencils are all inspired by artworks from the RA Collection. Download it and get crafting!
Become a film director for the day and create your very own cartoon animation inspired by artworks from the RA Collection.
Have a go at colouring different artworks from the RA Collection! Download a colouring sheet and crack out your pencils and pens.
Make a portrait or collage the pieces of a portrait puzzle.
Print a posy of springtime roses, a potato polar bear or some birthday wrapping paper.
Melt and grate crayons in our take on Jasper Johns’s encaustic paintings, working with wax to design a flag that represents you.
Forage for some autumnal inspiration, then get cutting and sticking to create moveable magnetic cut-outs that you can put on the front of your fridge.
Explore a whole world of colour through these DIY plastic goggles.
Learn to mix paint like a pro with this quick colour-wheel activity.
Play, experiment and explore how colours mix together by making this sensory slime!
Stuck for something to do? Learn how to make a spinning top that will spin and spin, splattering paint to create multiple masterpieces.
Inspired by the London Original Print Fair, here’s how to scribble, scratch and carve your design into a piece of polystyrene to make a relief print like a pro!
Joining a protest? Here’s how you can collage, stencil or paint a protest poster to hold high above your head!
Inspired by Abstract Expressionist sculpture, here’s how you can make a sculptural robot that can move around and draw all by itself!
Our range of short films offer introductions and tours of RA exhibitions, as well as sharing conversations with artists and behind-the-scenes visits, as we look at how their work was created.
Take a journey through 4,000 years of art-making across Spain and Latin America, guided by RA curator Adrian Locke and Director of the Hispanic Society Museum and Library, Guillaume Kientz.
Take a look behind the scenes of our blockbuster exhibition ‘Spain and the Hispanic World’ as our team prepare the Main Galleries.
Take a look around our show devoted to trailblazing women of 20th-century Modernism, guided by its curators Sarah Lea and Professor Dorothy Price.
Artist William Kentridge found a way to stay entertained while we built his blockbuster show in the Royal Academy Main Galleries – by drawing onto our 400-year old walls. See what he created here…
Globally acclaimed artist William Kentridge guides us through his exhibition, discussing the inspirations, processes and ambitions behind his immersive installations.
Vinu Daniel, founder of India-based firm Wallmakers, explains his unique approach to architecture and what winning the Dorfman Award means to him.
Take a virtual stroll through the galleries of the celebrated North American painter and colour aficionado – guided by curator Edith Devaney, advisor to the Milton Avery Trust Waqas Wajahat, and Avery’s grandson and artist Sean Cavanaugh.
Meet some of the stars of this year’s Young Artists’ Summer Show as they tell us the stories behind their works selected for display at the RA.
Take a quick trip through the 1,500 works on display in this year’s climate-themed show.
Meet some of the artists from this year’s show and find out more about their work and their feelings on the theme of Climate.
From rare treasures created in Spain and the Hispanic world, to re-performances of Marina Abramović’s best-known works, our 2023 programme gives everyone something to look forward to.
Instead of throwing cereal containers and milk cartons away, use them to make a miniature house with character.
Meet one of the most exciting Japanese painters of the 19th century.
Listen to Francis Bacon talk about how he paints and how his images form.
Take a tour of the exhibition ‘Whistler’s Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan’ with its curators, and delve into the life of the artist’s principal model.
We spoke to Francis Bacon’s friend, Michael Peppiatt, about the exhibition ‘Man and Beast’ and how Bacon’s vision of humanity was shaped by his interest in animals.
Try making a painting inspired by words like Summer Exhibition 2021 artist Patrick Moses.
Explore the exhibition of late works by one of Britain’s best-loved artists.
Our sold-out exhibition, ‘Gauguin and The Impressionists’, makes its big screen debut this winter thanks to our friends at ‘Exhibition on Screen’. Experience the show from home with this exclusive 10-minute clip, featuring curator Anna Ferrari and Secretary and Chief Executive, Axel Rüger.
Annette Fernando – a first-time exhibitor at the Summer Exhibition – talks us through her work, ‘Stop being so damn understanding’ which is so intricate, it’s often mistaken for a photo.
Explore the exhibition of stunning architectural photographs.
Meet some of the artists on show at the Summer Exhibition.
Explore our most diverse and inclusive Summer Exhibition ever.
Comedian and amateur artist Harry Hill talks us through his artworks at the Summer Exhibition 2021.
We meet the photographer in her studio to discuss her upcoming exhibition ‘Light Lines’, her love of music, and her ability to ‘draw’ with light.
Summer Exhibition coordinator Yinka Shonibare RA explains his vision for this year’s show
Artist Michael Armitage paints on a material called Lubugo, which is made by the Baganda people of southern Uganda. Discover how Lubugo’s crafted, and how Armitage incorporates its imperfections into his work.
Get to know the inspiring artists of tomorrow as we take a look around this year’s Young Artists’ Summer Show.
Can’t visit the RA right now? Explore the colourful, dreamlike works of Kenya-born artist Michael Armitage from your sofa, in our latest virtual tour.
Join Emyr Williams for a workshop in how to create your own abstract drawings
Join artist Jake Garfield for this fun and informal life drawing session
Experiment with making miniature architectural models using just toothpicks and plasticine.
Join Michael Armitage as he introduces his works exploring paradise, the 2017 Kenyan Elections and a selection of East African artists who have informed his own practice.
Discover repetition and transformation in this workshop with Elinor Stanley
With David Hockney’s joyful exhibition of spring works filling our galleries – but the artist back at home in his Normandy studio – curator Edith Devaney catches up with him from the RA, pandemic-style.
If you haven’t been able to visit our David Hockney exhibition in person, here’s your chance to experience it from home. Make a calming cup of tea, press play, and enjoy the arrival of spring through Hockney’s eyes.
Join Laxmi Hussain for a guided workshop in drawing botanics
Learn all about anatomy drawing with our online Saturday Sketch Club
Have a go at making your own paint with eggs, make-up, spices and chalk.
Join us for a class in collage with artist Sahra Hersi – all you need is paper, glue and scissors
Take a lesson in life drawing from Andy Pankhurst in week two of our online Saturday Sketch Club
Artists Sane Wadu, Elimo Njau and Asaph Ng‘ethe Macua have played an important role in shaping figurative painting in Kenya – they have also had a profound impact on Armitage’s own artistic development. Learn more about these artists in our short video series.
Catch up on the first of our online Saturday Sketch Clubs, focusing on still life drawing with Mark Hampson
Take ten minutes to meditate as we guide you through a slow, mindful look at Yinka Shonibare RA’s sculpture.
Learn how to make your own paper from scratch using a photo frame, a pair of old tights and scrap paper.
Enjoy five blissful minutes of mindfulness and art with this guided meditation.
Take ten minutes to meditate as we mindfully guide you through John Aldrige’s still life painting ‘Artichokes and Cathay Quinces’.
Spend 10 mindful minutes on a guided meditation through the details of Rodney Burn RA’s ‘Bracklesham Sands’.
Follow these instructions to create your own light installation at home, using a simple DIY projector.
Spend 60 seconds exploring the dark mythology behind John William Waterhouse RA’s ‘A Mermaid’.
Explore the dark territories and raw emotions distilled in the artworks of Tracey Emin and Edvard Munch in this virtual tour of our landmark exhibition.
Two legs good, four legs better? Grab your pencils and sketch this tiny pony in two short poses from our 2019 event #LifeDrawingLive: the anatomy class.
From Thetford forest to the Medici Venus, unmask the influences behind the work of painter and sculptor, Lisa Wright.
From locking down to looking forward: join President Rebecca Salter and Axel Rüger, Secretary and Chief Executive, for a holiday message from the Academicians’ Room.
Join Tracey Emin RA as she introduces her selection of masterpieces by Edvard Munch alongside her own works.
Be inspired by four practices who are reimagining the future of architecture and learn more about the evocative work of Cristina Iglesias, the 2020 RA Architecture Prize winner.
Make your own unique and colourful prints using felt-tip pens and an old baking dish.
See how artist Sarah Gillespie turns drawings of drowsy moths into beautiful mezzotint prints – raising awareness of a species that is often overlooked.
Hear from some of the UK’s most talented young artists who are exhibiting in this year’s Young Artists’ Summer Show.
Explore the first ever winter Summer Exhibition like never before and discover a myriad of works by household names and emerging artists inside this virtual tour.
Join coordinators Jane and Louise Wilson RA as they introduce the 252nd Summer Exhibition and discuss the challenges of putting it all together during a pandemic.
Learn the story behind Anne Desmet RA’s engraving, which commemorates the centenary year of the Society of Wood Engravers and features in this year’s Summer Exhibition.
Our latest exhibition, Gauguin and the Impressionists: Masterpieces of the Ordrupgaard Collection, has humble roots in the home of Wilhelm and Henny Hansen. In this video produced by Ordrupgaard, discover how the Hansens transformed their private home into a jewel in the crown of the Danish art scene.
In 2018, we hosted the world’s first-ever livestreamed life drawing class from the Royal Academy’s famous Life Room, #LifeDrawingLive. Grab a pencil and have a crack at each pose by life model Andrew Crayford.
Try these two simple techniques and experiment with using chalk to make colourful abstract prints.
Step into our galleries to experience ‘Gauguin and the Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Ordrupgaard Collection’, including 60 works – many of which have never been seen in the UK.
The 18th-century British artist John Flaxman was an established sculptor, but it was his drawn illustrations of ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’ that made him a sensation across Europe.
Join curator, Anna Ferrari, as she introduces Gauguin and the Impressionists: Masterpieces of the Ordrupgaard Collection, including works by Manet, Pissarro, Degas and Morisot coming to the UK for the first time.
Artist Anne Desmet RA documents the weekly progress of her latest wood engraving – inspired by her mother, the resilience of the human spirit, and Florence Nightingale.
Follow these instructions to design your own puppets and put on a play in a cardboard theatre.
In 1922, the Royal Academy elected its first female member in over 150 years, Annie Swynnerton – here’s how to read her enigmatic painting of a young woman.
Follow these simple instructions to make a mini loom and have a go at weaving with recycled plastic bags.
Originally released to celebrate David Hockney’s 80th birthday, filmmaker Bruno Wollheim shared 80 short films made with the artist. Now, they are being re-released daily during the Coronavirus pandemic. Watch three of them here.
Experiment with architectural collage and have a go at redesigning your street for future generations.
In 2014, an architecture exhibition took over the Royal Academy that invited audiences not just to step inside it, but to touch it, smell it and feel it. With a curator’s introduction, a documentary from the show and interviews with the architects, we take a trip back to the monumental exhibition, ‘Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined’.
Follow these easy instructions to brighten up your organic fabrics using natural, home-made dye.
This meticulous and mysterious work by Meredith Frampton is full of contrasting symbolism. Our Collections team guide you through it in this three-minute read.
Discover how multicultural influences fuse together to create a wider view of global inclusivity in Yinka Shonibare RA’s cheeky sculpture.
Originally released in cinemas, this ‘Exhibition on Screen’ film takes you back in time to visit the Royal Academy’s 2013 ‘Manet: Portraying Life’ exhibition, one of our most visited shows of all time. Take a trip to 19th-century Paris where the story of this modern master unfolds – and peep behind the scenes at the RA, as the curators prepared to tell his story in this major show.
Learn how a pair of engravings by satirical artist William Hogarth were used to alter the drinking habits of the British public in the 18th century.
Join curator Ann Dumas on a tour through the gardens of Claude Monet, Pierre Bonnard, Emile Nolde, Max Liebermann and Henri Le Sidaner. Filmed ahead of our 2016 exhibition, ‘Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse’, take a moment to escape to the idyllic rural wilderness.
In this video from our ‘Artists in Isolation’ series, John Maine RA talks us through the process of making a huge, stone sculpture for Salisbury town centre – and what happens when lockdown lands in the middle of it.
Originally released in cinemas, this ‘Exhibition on Screen’ film takes us back to our landmark exhibition, ‘Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse’, examining the role gardens played in the evolution of art from the early 1860s through to the 1920s.
Combining allusions to both Renaissance and Pre-Raphaelite painting, Frank Cadogan Cowper’s Vanity celebrates beauty while cautioning against excessive self-regard. Unravel the painting’s influences in this three-minute read.
Experience our ‘Picasso and Paper’ exhibition from home in this video tour of the galleries.
Enjoy this exclusive digital premiere of the film ‘PHYLLIDA’, a documentary portrait of the artist Phyllida Barlow RA. Released on her birthday, this film celebrates her pioneering contribution to the field of sculpture.
On 29 March 2020, we were due to open our new exhibition ‘Gauguin and the Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Ordrupgaard Collection’. Since you can’t come to us, we thought we would bring a taste of it to you. In this video series, see a bite-sized biography of Gauguin, and take a deep dive into Renoir’s ‘Le Moulin de la Galette’ and Manet’s ‘Woman with a Jug’.
While the RA doors are temporarily closed, you can still experience our exhibition on Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert in this video tour of the galleries.
Join curator Ann Dumas in exploring our new exhibition, ‘Picasso and Paper’. See how the iconic artist innovated by tearing, burning, sculpting and collaging with any paper he could get his hands on.
Filmed in 1956, ‘Le Mystère Picasso’ is a documentary capturing Picasso in full creative flow. Three of the works he’s seen making in the film are now the walls of the RA, in ‘Picasso and Paper’ – watch how one of them came to be, in this short film…
Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert was an insomniac. He wandered the streets of Brussels at night in search of inspiration. In this video, delve into the solitude and mystery that encompasses the artist’s evocative paintings.
The 50 Lucian Freud self-portraits currently on show at the RA reveal how the artist developed his distinctive painting technique throughout his career. Find out more in this video.
In this special event, Antony Gormley discusses a career spanning over 40 years and his most ambitious exhibition in a decade.
In this three-part video series, we take you behind the scenes of our Antony Gormley exhibition to show how key works were made and reveal the stories behind them.
“There’s an experience that art can offer which is this strange combination of activating the eyes, the mind, the body and a kind of emotional spectrum.”
Hear from some of the talented artists in our Young Artists’ Summer Show, which celebrates the creativity of young people aged 7-19.
Tim Marlow gives a quick introduction to Félix Vallotton, the Swiss-born painter and printmaker whose portrayals of Belle Epoque Paris reveal a truly distinctive artistic vision.
In this video, architect Norman Foster RA discusses the redevelopment of Madrid’s Museo del Prado and his practice’s unique take on the boundaries between the old and the new.
Join presenter and fashion designer Alexa Chung for a (very) private view of this year’s Summer Exhibition, as she picks out some of her favourite works.
For video artist Bill Viola, water is a powerful and recurring theme, and one that’s central to our landmark exhibition, ‘Bill Viola / Michelangelo: Life, Death, Rebirth’. In this interview, the artist traces this back to a formative incident in his childhood.
Artist John Pule, who is from Niue and New Zealand, introduces his five-panel painting ‘Kehe tau hauaga foou (To all new arrivals)’ in our Oceania exhibition.
This huge feather headdress from Papua New Guinea is 100 years old and has rarely been shown in public due to its delicate nature.
Tim Marlow gives a quick introduction to Egon Schiele, whose extraordinary works on paper are on show in our exhibition ‘Klimt / Schiele’.
New Zealand’s Mata Aho Collective introduce their spectacular 11-metre installation ‘Kiko Moana’, which hangs in the opening room of our Oceania exhibition.
Sāmoa-based artist Yuki Kihara introduces her mesmerising video work ‘Siva in Motion’, which is on display in the Memory and Commemoration room of our Oceania exhibition.
Tim Marlow gives a quick introduction to Gustav Klimt, one of the two Viennese masters whose works on paper are shown side-by-side in our exhibition ‘Klimt / Schiele’.
Shown together for the first time, two historic carvings in our Oceania exhibition tell the story of a voyaging past that connects the Māori people of New Zealand to their ancestors from far across the Pacific.
Tattoo has a long history in the South Pacific, as shown by a number of historic treasures and contemporary artworks in our Oceania exhibition. In this video, a traditional tā moko (Māori tattoo) artist talks about his work.
Take a look inside our Oceania exhibition in this video tour, hosted by the RA’s Artistic Director Tim Marlow, which features a very special musical performance in the galleries.
Our major exhibition Oceania celebrates the dazzling and diverse art of this vast region. To mark the opening of the exhibition, a special ceremonial welcome took place at the RA.
From the genius of the Renaissance to immersive new work created specially for our galleries, next year’s exhibitions promise to exhilarate and inspire. The RA’s Artistic Director, Tim Marlow, introduces our packed programme for 2019.
From the work of “friendly rivals” Reynolds and Gainsborough to the rebellious Pre-Raphaelites, our exhibition The Great Spectacle brings together some of the highlights of 250 years of the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. Take a look inside in these videos.
Take a look inside the 250th Summer Exhibition in this video with coordinator Grayson Perry RA, as he shows us some of his highlights of this year’s show.
Artistic director Tim Marlow gives a behind-the-scenes tour of the new Royal Academy of Arts.
Hanging from the vast Victorian glass roof of St Pancras International, I Want My Time With You is the latest in the Terrace Wires public art series. In this video, Tracey Emin discusses the origins of the work and why she chose these particular words.
Tim Marlow gives a quick introduction to Artemisia Gentileschi, one of very few women who carved out a career in the 17th-century art world.
How do you take decades of dirt off a sculpture without damaging its original surface, or reassemble and attach missing parts of a historic statue? Find out in the latest edition of our behind-the-scenes video series, revealing our preparations for unveiling of The New RA.
With our Charles I exhibition celebrating the monarch’s extraordinary art collection, we take a closer look at one of his favourite painters – the Baroque superstar Anthony van Dyck.
As the RA prepares to show the great works of Charles I’s art collection, we go behind the scenes at Windsor Castle to see some rarely-shown Holbein drawings that are coming to the exhibition.
2017 marks 100 years since a porcelain urinal changed the course of modern art. In this video, Professor Dawn Ades tells the story behind Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’.
Encaustic is an ancient painting method in which wax and pigment are fused onto a surface with heat. Watch a demonstration of this versatile technique by Royal Academician Terry Setch, recorded in his Cardiff studio.
What was it that made Marcel Duchamp such an influential figure? Here’s a quick introduction to the man dubbed the father of conceptual art.
From African masks to ornate furniture, the objects that Henri Matisse collected throughout his life played a key role in his art. Learn more in these videos with curator Ann Dumas.
Before we unveil the New RA for our 250th anniversary in 2018, we’re restoring some of the original features of our 18th-century home on Piccadilly. This video shows the reinstallation of a vast ceiling painting by William Kent.
Tim Marlow gives a quick introduction to Salvador Dalí, the Spanish surrealist who became the first art superstar of the television age – and whose surprising friendship with Marcel Duchamp is currently in the spotlight at the RA.
Tim Marlow gives a quick introduction to Jasper Johns, one of the 20th century’s great artistic innovators, who continues to make work today.
Next year’s exhibitions will take us from a legendary British collection to the far seas of the South Pacific, and from centuries past to a glimpse into the future of art. The RA’s Artistic Director introduces the programme for our 250th anniversary year.
Tim Marlow gives a 60-second introduction to Henri Matisse, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
In 2018, our two historic sites at Burlington House and Burlington Gardens will be linked together for the first time. In this video, we look at the complex process of connecting two listed buildings, with a sculptural bridge that traces the line of an original garden path from 350 years ago.
Think you know watercolour? Think again. Join Christopher Le Brun PPRA in his London studio as he debunks some of the myths about this versatile medium and its possibilities.
In 2018 we’re unveiling new spaces to display the Royal Academy’s Collection. In this video, we take a look at some of the treasures that will be on show, including the UK’s only sculpture by Michelangelo.
“We wanted to have an art that could deal with emotion, with life and death and hope and fear and friendship.”
In these videos, take a look inside our exhibition of post-revolutionary Russian art and learn more about the vast 1932 exhibition in Leningrad that inspired it.
In our latest 60-second guide, Tim Marlow introduces Edward Hopper, perhaps the most important American realist painter of the early 20th century.
Tim Marlow introduces Grant Wood, the artist whose portrayals of small-town life in America include one of the most recognisable paintings of all time.
How do you repair historic stone when that stone is no longer quarried? This video series reveals the ideas, people and challenges behind transforming the RA ahead of our 250th anniversary in 2018, and in this episode we come to the restoration of 6 Burlington Gardens and its historic statues.
Got a minute? In these short videos, the RA’s Artistic Director introduces five of the key figures of Abstract Expressionism.
In the first part of our new video series looking at artistic techniques, Anne Desmet RA demonstrates each step in creating a wood engraving, from tracing the original drawing through to printing a first proof.
Watch a video of legendary photographer and filmmaker David Bailey in conversation with the RA’s Artistic Director Tim Marlow, discussing his influential work and innovative portrait photographs from the last 60 years.
The RA’s Artistic Director introduces our 2017 exhibition programme, which explores some of the most momentous developments in 20th-century art.
Hear from four of the sitters painted by David Hockney for our exhibition ‘David Hockney RA: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life’, from 11-year-old Rufus Hale to the architect Frank Gehry.
In this video, artist Aono Fumiaki talks about his work born out of the wreckage of Japan’s 2011 tsunami, on show in this year’s Summer Exhibition.
Artist duo Zatorski + Zatorski discuss their unusual self-portrait created from carbonised human skeletons.
The Turkish artist discusses the origins of his large-scale installation work which is on show in the Summer Exhibition.
David Hockney RA talks to curator Edith Devaney about his Royal Academy exhibition ‘82 Portraits and 1 Still-life’.
In this video, Rebecca Salter RA explains the traditional tools and techniques used by the Sato Woodblock Workshop in Kyoto when creating her print for the Summer Exhibition 2016.
In the headline debate for the London Festival of Architecture, our panellists and audience discuss how architecture can be used to bring people together at a time when Britain’s relationship to Europe and the rest of the world is the subject of intense discussion.
The official launch of the Summer Exhibition 2016 welcomed some of London’s most celebrated artists and art lovers to Burlington House.
This video series reveals the ideas and people behind the transformation of the Royal Academy ahead of our 250th anniversary in 2018. In the second episode, we take a look at what’s involved in bringing artworks and documents from the past into the 21st century.
The Royal Academician talks about the “Baccahanalian excess” of her sculptural installation Top Shelf, currently on display above the bar in the Academicians’ Room at the RA.
The Royal Academician’s sculpture inspired by the mathematician Ada Lovelace goes on show at The Peninsula Hotel.
For Matisse, Kandinsky and Munch, the garden provided inspiration as they worked towards new styles of painting.
RA Magazine takes a look at three shows of video art that reinvent the documentary form.
Take a tour of three beautiful gardens which inspired paintings in our forthcoming exhibition on the garden in art.
Barbara Rae RA introduces our latest Art Sales range, currently on display in the Keepers’ House.
In this video series, curator MaryAnne Stevens takes us inside the Sackler Wing exhibition devoted to the 18th century Swiss master, Jean-Etienne Liotard, and picks out a few highlights.
In this video, the Royal Academician discusses his new book which brings together portraits of friends and neighbours with their canine companions.
From losing consciousness to sitting motionless every day for three months, the inimitable artist pushes her body to its limits. Watch her in conversation with Bryan Appleyard.
Bob and Roberta Smith’s exhibition of his recent campaigning art finds a natural home at the London gallery dedicated to designer and radical socialist William Morris.
Artist and writer Edmund de Waal gives a tour of his new project in the RA Library and Print Room.
Fred Cuming RA reflects on his long career as a painter in this short film, shot in and around his East Sussex home.
The Royal Academy’s Artistic Director explains what’s in store in for the next year as we launch our 2016 exhibition programme.
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels delivered the 25th Annual Architecture Lecture in the unique setting of the Summer Exhibition.
A long-time fan of the Royal Academy’s annual Summer Exhibition, actor Richard E Grant takes us on a whistle-stop tour of his favourite works of art in this year’s show.
Take a look inside the exhibition ‘Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust’ in these short video clips with our curators.
Our new video series goes behind the scenes to reveal the ideas and people behind the transformation of the Royal Academy ahead of our 250th anniversary in 2018. In the first episode, members of the project team from David Chipperfield Architects discuss how they’re taking it from concept to reality.
The curator of our Cornell exhibition describes how this singular artist’s life in early 20th century New York shaped his first forays into the art world.
A new exhibition showcases the Academician’s artistic response to her Arctic and Antarctic journeys.
Have you noticed something different about our banners? Artist Henry Coleman has co-opted them in a sculptural response to the Academy’s forthcoming architectural transformation.
The Summer Exhibition Preview Party is one of the most glamorous events in the London calendar – and a major fundraiser for the RA.
Take a look behind the scenes at the making of ‘The Dappled Light of the Sun’.
The curators of our Stanley Anderson exhibition discuss his portrayals of the traditional crafts of the English countryside.
The Royal Academician explains how turning away from colour has had an invigorating effect on her work.
Take a look inside our Richard Diebenkorn exhibition in these short videos presented by the exhibition’s curators.
The Royal Academician explains how the nature of memory and a sense of place are driving forces in his latest series of paintings.
An exhibition of five decades of Bryan Kneale’s sculpture and works on paper gives the Academician a chance to see his work afresh.
The Royal Academician explains how his new series of paintings in silicone and resin have a close connection to his blockbuster 2009 show at the RA.
The Royal Academician’s sculpture inspired by ‘The Italian Job’ goes on show at The Peninsula Hotel.
The eminent architect discusses her approach to her work and her thoughts on the past, present and future of architecture.
A survey of work by Cornelia Parker RA is the opening show at Manchester’s newly renovated Whitworth Gallery – featuring a room hung with the negatives from a poppy factory.
On the eve of a major exhibition in London dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, we delve into the RA’s archive to learn more about the Academy’s founding president.
We went behind the scenes in the RA Schools to follow the progress of second-year students putting together their interim exhibition.
Professor Germaine Greer, Dr Tom Shakespeare, Grayson Perry RA and Professor Mary Beard discuss the role art plays in creating and communicating body image.
We speak to painter Chantal Joffe RA in her new exhibition at Jerwood Gallery in Hastings.
What was it like to wear the elaborate clothes of a Renaissance aristocrat, as seen in the portraits of Giovanni Battista Moroni? Award winning actor Mark Rylance reveals all.
A recent event for blind and visually impaired visitors engaged the senses of smell, touch, taste and hearing to explore our building’s architecture and history.
Who was Mr. Turner? A contradiction, Timothy Spall told us at a recent panel discussion on Mike Leigh’s biopic. Watch the event and a behind-the-scenes video about the film here.
In a discussion chaired by the RA’s Tim Marlow, Anselm Kiefer and David Chipperfield RA explore the ways art and architecture interact in Kiefer’s practice.
We ask a Savile Row tailor to give us an insider’s perspective on Moroni’s iconic portrait ‘The Tailor’.
The Academician’s lifelong artistic engagement with the East End neighbourhood now includes the bell ringers of its iconic Hawksmoor church.
Mike Leigh’s new film brings to life one of British art’s brightest stars and features several scenes set at the RA. We take a look at the supporting cast of Turner’s friends and rivals at the Academy.
The Royal Academician shares a chapter from her new memoir.
As a new exhibition of his work opens in London, the US-based Academician reflects on an artistic discovery that moulded his approach to sculpture.
Ahead of a special event at the RA, one of our panellists tells us about the figures behind a 19th-century love triangle that scandalised the art world.
The Royal Academician discusses his robot installation inspired by Ada Lovelace.
The Royal Academician describes tackling the medium of bronze as her major new exhibition opens in London.
As the RA prepares for a major Ai Weiwei exhibition in 2015, we visited the honorary Royal Academician at his studio in China.
A new film by Bob and Roberta Smith RA and Tim Newton has its first screening at the RA.
In the lead-up to his major RA exhibition this autumn, we take a look inside the artist’s huge “gesamtkunstwerk” in the south of France.
In celebration of the RA’s exhibition ‘Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album’, the BFI hosted a special event with Peter Fonda.
The legendary Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez discusses his experiments with colour and movement, and how he engages viewers with his art.
Explore some of the highlights in our exhibition of groundbreaking abstract art from 20th-century South America
The film ‘Love has no reason’ by RA Schools graduate Julie Born Schwartz has been added to the Royal Academy’s historic Collection.
Tracey Emin RA’s ‘My Bed’ (1998), one of the seminal works of the Young British Artist generation, goes up for sale at Christie’s on Tuesday 1 July.
The Summer Exhibition Preview Party is one of the most glamorous events in the London calendar - and a major fundraiser for the RA.
Celebrating with the artists in this year’s Summer Exhibition.
This summer the RA presents an exhibition of some of the most exciting geometric abstract art ever made.
Ken Howard RA’s range of interior paints created specially for the Royal Academy is inspired by his beloved Venice, a city where he has had a studio for the past 10 years.
The artist’s new paint range for the RA draws inspiration from his life and work.
In the second of our behind-the-scenes videos about the RA Summer Exhibition 2014, we take a look at the judging process and speak to the exhibition’s coordinator Hughie O‘Donoghue RA.
‘Sensing Spaces’ was a transformative exhibition for the RA in lots of ways and from the beginning we wanted to break new ground in the types of events we organised for it.
In the first of our behind-the-scenes videos about the RA Summer Exhibition 2014, we speak to some of the artists submitting their work.
Swedish-born artists Lundahl & Seitl are bringing their experiential artwork ‘Symphony of a Missing Room: Archive of the Forgotten and Remembered’ to the RA this summer.
Watch our video of Anselm Kiefer Hon RA discussing his work with broadcaster and art historian Tim Marlow ahead of his major UK retrospective this autumn.
You need to consent to marketing cookies set by Vimeo to view this content.
Inspired by our ‘Renaissance Impressions’ exhibition, Stephen Chambers RA decided to create his own chiaroscuro woodcut. Here he shares his discoveries and includes his step-by-step guide.
Artist Vanessa Jackson presents the RA Schools Annual Lecture 2014.
From contemporary maritime art to disemboweled books: everything worth seeing this week.
From 100 works on paper to Asian art in London: everything worth seeing this week.
More than any other architects, Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura have made me look with a fresh eye at the Royal Academy’s galleries and architecture.
It may seem a strange term for an architect to coin, but Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has been developing an idea of what he calls “weak architecture”.
When putting together this group of architects I purposefully sought out those who would bring a variety of perspectives on how we think about architecture and the spaces around us.
It was when sitting with Li Xiaodong in a courtyard garden in the Huairou district, a mountainous area near the Great Wall, an hour north of Beijing, that many of his observations of Chinese culture and sensibilities became much clearer for me.
Sensing Spaces will transform the RA’s Main Galleries with structures, light, sounds and smells. Hear from behind the scenes as the exhibition installation gets underway.
Spending some time with the Chilean architects who ‘consider’ rather than ‘design’.
“Buildings tell the stories of our lives in built form… We walk through and feel spaces with our whole bodies and our senses, not just with our eyes and with our minds. We are fully involved in the experience; this is what makes us human.”
Culture, history and rejection in the Google era.
Introducing the architects taking part in ‘Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined’.
You need to consent to marketing cookies set by Vimeo to view this content.
As Bill Woodrow RA prepares for his major retrospective at the Academy, Richard Cork talks to him about the extraordinary range of his sculpture and how one recurring theme has grown into a love of beekeeping.
This year, 17 students will reach the end of their three-year postgraduate fine art course at the RA.
If you like ‘Downton Abbey’, you’ll love ‘Summer in February’, starring Dominic Cooper as Alfred Munnings, future President of the Royal Academy.
A one-day symposium concerned with the management of reading, with Lucy Skaer, Angie Keefer, Nina Power, Cally Spooner and Natasha Soobramanien.
Theory, fiction, criticism, confession?
The 2013 ‘Premiums: Interim Projects’ exhibition is an opportunity to see the work of RA Schools students at the midway point of their three-year course.
Choreographer Katie Green created a site-specific dance to accompany Chris Wilkinson RA’s ‘From Landscape to Portrait’.
The artist gives RA Magazine an exclusive video tour of highlights from the show.
Explore a range of individual works from our Collection, in this series to encourage close looking.
The 18th-century British artist John Flaxman was an established sculptor, but it was his drawn illustrations of ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’ that made him a sensation across Europe.
In 1922, the Royal Academy elected its first female member in over 150 years, Annie Swynnerton – here’s how to read her enigmatic painting of a young woman.
This meticulous and mysterious work by Meredith Frampton is full of contrasting symbolism. Our Collections team guide you through it in this three-minute read.
Combining allusions to both Renaissance and Pre-Raphaelite painting, Frank Cadogan Cowper’s Vanity celebrates beauty while cautioning against excessive self-regard. Unravel the painting’s influences in this three-minute read.
Dame Laura Knight RA was denied access to nude models throughout her studies. In Cornwall, she found the freedom and the friends to make up for lost time.
In Gabriella Boyd’s “Sunhead”, familiar shapes are given a surreal twist. The painting floats on the edge of reality where nothing is certain. But what does it mean? Where did the head go? And why is this painting in the RA’s Collection anyway?
Frank Brangwyn’s ‘Sunflowers’ is an explosion of colour that captures the vibrancy of a much-loved plant. But did Brangwyn copy Van Gogh? And why sunflowers, anyway?
Within the RA’s Collection Gallery is a full-size copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’, painted by one or more of his pupils. What can it tell us about the original masterpiece?
How much has the Summer Exhibition changed in 250 years? As the Great Spectacle exhibition looks back at the masterpieces from its history, we head back to 1771 to explore a work that documented the exhibition itself.
As you enter the RA’s new Collection Gallery, a very large (and slightly absurd) figure of Satan towers over you – in what looks suspiciously like the Tory “power stance”. Here’s the story behind the painting…
Vast and dense, Frank Bowling’s monumental Wintergreens is one of the modern masterpieces in the RA collection. It is currently on display in ‘Mappa Mundi’, a large retrospective of his work at the Sharjah Art Foundation.
Take a closer look at Henry Raeburn’s Boy and Rabbit, an intimate family portrait from the RA Collection.
Edward Burne-Jones and his fellow Pre-Raphaelites are famed for their paintings, but their illustrations, which were an important part of their early careers, are less well-known. Here’s a closer look at one of Burne-Jones’s wood engravings.
The Falling Titan depicts the doomed attempt of an earthbound giant to reach Olympus and overthrow Zeus by climbing up a pile of great boulders, only to be crushed by those very stones.
Bill Woodrow RA’s Fingerswarm is part of a new display of sculpture curated by Richard Deacon RA. Woodrow held a swarm of bees on his bare hand at a beekeeping course, sparking the idea for this surreal sculpture.
This painting-within-a-painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema depicts his artist wife and her siblings examining an earlier work by the couple, painted to symbolise their marriage.
Pattern and design are as important as accuracy in this wood engraving by Charles Tunnicliffe RA. Come and take a closer look…
Architect Ian Ritchie is known for audacious works such as the 120-metre Spire of Dublin and the world’s largest glass hall in Leipzig, but the poems and etchings that inspire these buildings are not so well known. Here we take a closer look at his unusual early design process.
The year 2017 was the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality, marked at Tate Britain with an exhibition of ‘Queer British Art’, featuring Henry Tuke’s A Bathing Group from our collection. Take a closer look…
The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John, known as the Taddei Tondo, is the only marble sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti in a UK collection.
Here’s the story behind a slightly unusual work by Royal Academician Anthony Green.
Painted quickly to develop ideas before the final work, this is one of 16 oil sketches by John Constable RA in our collection. Here’s an introduction to Flatford Mill from a Lock on the Stour.
It’s looking rather balmy in London just now, so we’re seeking out our own white Christmas in the RA collection, with Joseph Farquharson’s snowy Scottish landscape. Did you know the sheep are fake?
This vast and vibrant work by Gillian Ayres was inspired by the wild canvases of Jackson Pollock.
Sir William Chambers’s beautiful 18th-century drawing tells an ancient story about the beginnings of architecture.
Take a closer look at how one of Britain’s most celebrated 19th-century sculptors tackled an ancient Roman tale in marble.
The Royal Academy welcomes disabled visitors, their families, friends and carers. For more information, visit our Access page.
When should this exhibition be published?