Enfilade

Readers will likely have already heard about this amazing publication from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, but I’m glad to join the chorus of fans! (Disclosure: I provided entries for 1823 and 1846). If you have trouble navigating with Firefox, try another browser (it works beautifully on an iPhone). The brief essays are wide-ranging and full of surprises. In addition, it’s difficult to overestimate the value of freely available digital, searchable versions of the catalogues for all 250 years. There must also be wonderful teaching possibilities! –CH

From the Mellon Centre:

Hallett, Mark, Sarah Victoria Turner, Jessica Feather, Baillie Card, Tom Scutt, and Maisoon Rehani, eds., The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Chronicle, 1769–2018 (London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2018), https://www.chronicle250.com.

A major new, free to access digital publication reveals the hidden stories from the entwined histories of British art and the Royal Academy, marking the 250th anniversary of the world’s longest-running annual display of contemporary art.

Since 1769, more than 40,000 contemporary artists have shown more than 300,000 works at the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibition. In time for this year’s show (opening on 12 June), the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art has released The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Chronicle, 1769–2018. This open access digital publication brings together artwork, stories, and data spanning 250 years of the exhibition’s history.

Lively year-by-year essays examining key artists, artworks, and events from each exhibition are accompanied by a complete set of digitised and searchable catalogues chronicling the history of the annual event from 1769 to the present day. It contains 250 contributions from over 90 experts—including artists, critics, curators, and art historians—and is intended to be a permanent research resource for anyone interested the history of British art.

The online publication complements the exhibition The Great Spectacle: 250 Years of the Summer Exhibition, on view at the Royal Academy from 12 June until August 19.