The Great Spectacle
250 Years of the Summer Exhibition
12 June — 19 August 2018
The Great Spectacle
The Great Spectacle tells the story of 250 years of the Summer Exhibition, the world’s longest running annual display of contemporary art.
Every summer for the past two and a half centuries, we’ve filled our galleries with artworks submitted by artists from across the country. As the world has changed dramatically, so too has the art that makes it onto the walls of the RA each year to form the famously crowded and collage-like arrangement of pictures that dominates each exhibition.
During its long lifetime, paintings, sculpture, drawings and architectural designs by household names such as John Constable, Joseph Mallord William Turner, Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent, Laura Knight, Zaha Hadid, Peter Blake and Tracey Emin have been displayed alongside work by first-time exhibitors, creating the distinctive visual character that draws thousands of visitors to the Summer Exhibition each year.
Staged to coincide with the Summer Exhibition of 2018, The Great Spectacle revisits important moments in the history of the Academy and its annual show: from its inception as a showcase for grand society portraits and epic history scenes, via its role in the fight for women’s suffrage and the impact of two World Wars, to its ongoing status as a platform for both established and unknown contemporary artists.
Take a fascinating, ever changing journey through 250 years of art.
All ticket prices include £2.50 for a printed gallery guide.
12 June — 19 August 2018
Daily 10am – 6pm
Friday 10am – 10pm
Special late opening for final weekend
Sat 18 August: 10am – 8.30pm
£16 (without donation £14). Concessions available. Under-16s go free with a fee-paying adult. Free for Friends of the RA with no booking required.
The John Madejski Fine Rooms, Weston Rooms and Galleries I and II, Burlington House, Royal Academy of Arts
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Open until 10pm every Friday
Bring in the weekend at the RA with cocktails, deckchairs and music every Friday in our Annenberg Courtyard. All our exhibitions are open until 10pm too, including The Great Spectacle, our 250th Summer Exhibition, and Tacita Dean: LANDSCAPE.
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Gallery
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Calais Sands at Low Water: Poissards Collecting Bait, 1830.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, C142 Winter Sunshine, Chartwell, 1924-25.
Joseph Michael Gandy, Public and Private Buildings executed by Sir John Soane between 1780 and 1815.
Wolfgang Tillmans, Greifbar 1, 2014.
John Everett Millais, Isabella, 1849.
Dame Laura Knight, Lamorna Birch and his Daughters, 1916. LF - 1913 (reworked 1934).
Auguste Rodin, The Age of Bronze, 1877 (cast 1907).
Zaha Hadid, Aerial view, Cardiff Bay Opera House, Cardiff Wales, Competition, 1994 – 1996.
Cornelia Parker, Stolen Thunder III (Red Spots), 2015.
Tracey Emin, There's a Lot of Money in Chairs, 1994.
William Powell Frith, A Private View at the Academy, 1881, 1883.
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Browse the range
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Large-print guide
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Become a Friend to see for free
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250th Summer Exhibition
12 June — 19 August 2018
This summer, Grayson Perry RA coordinates the biggest, brightest and most colourful Summer Exhibition yet, in our 250th annual celebration of “art made now”.
There’ll be a monumental sculpture in our courtyard and artworks in an array of mediums throughout our galleries, all handpicked by a committee led by Grayson Perry RA. With over 1,200 works on display, you’ll see art you love, art you hate, art that leaves you thinking and art that simply puts a smile on your face.
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250 years of the Summer Exhibition online
The Chronicle
In celebration of the Royal Academy’s 250th birthday and coinciding with The Great Spectacle exhibition, a new open access publication by the Paul Mellon Centre looks back at 250 years of the Summer Exhibition. Explore 250 years of stories, artworks and data, alongside lively year-by-year essays and a complete set of digitised and searchable Summer Exhibition catalogues.
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Read more
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RA Exhibitions
9 months ago
Bombs, dots and rockstars: seven stories of the Summer Exhibition
From frenemy feuds to a bomb through the roof, the storylines of the Summer Exhibition could make a TV drama – so no wonder it’s often featured on screen. Here are just a few of our favourite episodes…
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Our Collection
> 4 years ago
How to read it: The Exhibition of the Royal Academy in Pall Mall, 1771
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.
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Our Collection
> 4 years ago
The RA Collection in 250 objects: The Summer Exhibition
To celebrate our 250th birthday, we’re highlighting 250 beautiful, odd and inspiring objects from the RA Collection in 25 themes. In this edition, with the Summer Exhibition on display, and another RA exhibition – The Great Spectacle – looking back at its history, we explore some works in the Collection from Summers gone by.
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RA Exhibitions
> 4 years ago
Inside the show: The Great Spectacle
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.
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Our Collection
> 4 years ago
‘Deeds not words’: Suffragettes and the Summer Exhibition
The Great Spectacle charts 250 years of Summer Exhibitions – including 1914, when Suffragette Mary Wood attacked a John Singer Sargent portrait with a meat cleaver. We delve into the Royal Academy’s archive to find out how the Academy, and the public, reacted.
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RA Exhibitions
> 4 years ago
Did Banksy get into the Summer Exhibition?
As the 250th Summer Exhibition opens, Banksy has revealed that he entered the public submission exhibition under a pseudonym… Here’s the inside story.
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