Sunday 26 February 2012

RA Summer Exhibition 2012 - Call for Entries


Call For Entries

Open Submission 
Deadline for entries: 13 March 2012
Application fee: £25 per work
The RA Summer exhibition is curated by an annually rotating committee of Royal Academicians who are all practicing artists and architects. Any artist may enter work for selection - over 12,000 works are submitted for consideration every year and around 1200 are exhibited. The Academy works hard to encourage a diverse range of artists to enter and, as a result, well over 100 artists are included every year who have not previously exhibited in the Summer Exhibition.
The show provides an unrivalled opportunity for exhibitors to sell their work and have it seen by the approx 200,000 visitors that the exhibition attracts during its three-month run; all artists are strongly encouraged to enter work that is available for sale. The Academy is unique among major international art institutions in that it is governed by eminent artists and architects, and receives no government funding. The commission on sales supports its diverse programme of exhibitions and the Royal Academy Schools.
A total of over £60,000 is awarded for works in the Summer Exhibition; awards include The Royal Academy of Arts Charles Wollaston Award (£25,000) for the most distinguished work in the exhibition, The Jack Goldhill Award for Sculpture (£10,000) for a sculpture, The Sunny Dupree Family Award for a Woman Artist (£3,500) for the best painting or sculpture by a woman artist, The Hugh Casson Drawing Prize (£3000) for an original work on paper in any medium, where the emphasis is clearly on drawing, The London Original Print Fair Prize (£2000) for a print in any medium, The Rose Award for Photography (£1000) for a photograph or series of photographs, Lend Lease/Architects’ Journal Awards (£15,000) comprising at £10,000 Grand Award for architecture and £5000 for the best work by a first-time exhibitor in the Summer Exhibition.
An artist may submit a maximum of two works, for a handling charge of £25.00 per entry (which is non-refundable and includes VAT).
Entry Forms can be purchased online until Friday 9 March 2012 - for artists outside the UK, please refer to the FAQs - http://static.royalacademy.org.uk/files/2012-faqs-amended-21-02-12-1221.pdf

Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House, Piccadilly
London, W1J 0BD, UK
summerexhibition@royalacademy.org.uk
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/

Saturday 25 February 2012

About the V&A Print Archive


Prints collections


Aubrey Beardsley, poster, 'Pseudonym & Autonym Libraries'. Museum no. E.1376-1931
'The Pseudonym & Autonym Libraries', lithograph by Aubrey Beardsley, England, UK, 19th century. Museum no. E.1376-1931
The V&A Prints collections are famous for encompassing both fine art and commercial production. It consists of about 500,000 objects, including prints from the Renaissance to the present day, printed designs for the decorative arts, topographical and portrait prints, caricatures and greeting cards, and ephemera and commercial graphics. It also contains the national collections of posters and of wallpapers. It represents all the main printmaking processes, through the prints themselves, and through its outstanding collection of printmaking tools and equipment. Major prints by international contemporary artists show current directions in printmaking - new media, new formats, and new cultural contexts.
The Prints collections include:
  • Caricatures and cartoons
  • Costume prints, including fashion plates and fan leaves
  • Designs for the decorative arts, including a comprehensive engraved ornament collection
  • Ephemera and commercial graphics, such as advertisements, packaging, stationery
  • Fine art prints from the Renaissance to the present day
  • Greeting cards
  • Illustration
  • Posters
  • Playing cards
  • Portraits (including the Seligman Bequest of portrait prints)
  • Prints illustrating social history and religious symbolism
  • Reproductive prints
  • Topographic prints
  • Trade cards
  • Wallpapers and decorative papers
Key examples from the Prints collections are displayed in the Museum's galleries, while the other items can be seen in the Prints & Drawings Study Room.

Prints collecting policy

The V&A sometimes buys particular prints not just because they are marvellous prints in their own right but also because they tell us about things that our visitors are interested in or throw light on other areas of the V&A collections. Six prints bought using the Julie and Robert Breckman Print Fund are cases in point. They span three centuries and many subjects but each demonstrates why prints form an integral part of the V&A’s collections.

Historic British collections

The V&A’s splendid British Galleries opened in 2001 and the Museum is continuing to add to its historic British collections. Figure 1, The Royall Oake of Brittanyne, shows a diabolical Oliver Cromwell supervising the hacking down of a tree symbolising the British monarchy. The print will be going into a Civil War topic box available to V&A visitors in the Prints & Drawings Study Room. Topic boxes are a selection of prints and drawings on a particular theme. They can be seen in the Prints & Drawings Study Room, where works that are not on display are available to visitors. A topic box about drawing is the likely destination of lithograph in figure 2. Entitled Sketching from Nature, Tunbridge Wells, 1830, it makes fun of the early 19th-century fashion for ladies taking up drawing outdoors as a hobby.


'The Royall Oake of Brittayne', engraving by unknown artist, England, about 1649. Museum no. E.217-2002
Figure 1, 'The Royall Oake of Brittayne', satirical engraving of Oliver Cromwell by unknown artist, England, about 1649. Museum no. E.217-2002
'Sketching from nature', lithograph by unknown artist, England, about 1830. Museum no. E.223-2002
Figure 2, 'Sketching from nature', lithograph by unknown artist, England, about 1830. Museum no. E.223-2002