I enjoyed the first Royal Academy Summer Exhibition I went to in 2017 but a few later ones not so much. This year’s, however, was full of good stuff and much of it was in the first room, including one of my favourites: the painting of Varanasi, which was evocative of my trip there a few years ago. (More posts on Varanasi.)
Every year, the Royal Academy invites people to submit art for the Summer Exhibition. The first exhibition was held in 1769. Anyone can send in a work. You don’t have to be famous. Usually, there is a mixture of established and relatively unknown artists.
This year, the most famous (for me) artist was Tracey Emin. She had three works, two of which had been sold for £55,000; the third wasn’t for sale. There was also a painting by comedian Joe Lycett on show.
One sculpture depicted a somewhat mean/serious/sad looking Donald Trump:
There were many paintings I liked. Here are some of my favourites. You can see this year’s and some previous years’ entries on the Royal Academy website.
