Description
Public View: A Profile of the Royal West of England Academy
Edited by John Sansom
This story of a great institution mirrors changing tastes and patterns in Britain’s art world during more than 150 often turbulent years. John Sansom tells how the academy survived a succession of controversies and challenges, including the opening of the city’s municipal art gallery in the early twentieth century. There are essays by Sheena Stoddard on the Sharples family of artists and Tim Mowl on the ‘battle of the styles’ over whether, in the 1850s, the Academy should be built on the city’s prevailing neo-classical lines or in a more adventurous Italianate style.
Other chapters cover the patronage of the Wills family, the role played by Lord Methuen in guiding the Academy’s post-Second World War revival and conclude with the RWA re-opening after major building works poised to fulfil its potential as a major out-of-London centre of artistic excellence.
(HB) ISBN 978-1-904537-71-7
(SB) ISBN 978-1-900178-04-4
270 x 210mm
192 pages
many colour and black & white illustrations
