New Title | Henry Raeburn: Context, Reception, and Reputation
From Edinburgh University Press:
Viccy Coltman and Stephen Lloyd, eds., Henry Raeburn: Context, Reception and Reputation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 352 pages, hardback, ISBN: 978-0748654840, £90 ($145) / paperback, ISBN: 9780748654833, £30 ($50).
The first illustrated scholarly work devoted to the reception and reputation of Edinburgh’s premier Enlightenment portrait painter.
Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823) is especially well known in Scotland as the portrait painter of members of the Scottish Enlightenment. However, outside Scotland, the artist rarely makes more than a fleeting appearance in survey books about portraiture. Ten international scholars recover Raeburn from his artistic isolation by looking at his local and international reception and reputation, both in his lifetime and posthumously. It focuses as much on Edinburgh and Scotland as on metropolitan markets and cosmopolitan contexts. Previously unpublished archival material is brought to light for the first time, especially from the Innes of Stow papers and the archives of the dukes of Hamilton.
New Title | Anatomy and the Organization of Knowledge
From Pickering & Chatto:
Matthew Landers and Brian Muñoz, eds., Anatomy and the Organization of Knowledge, 1500–1850 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2012), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-1848933217, £60/$99.
Across early modern Europe, the growing scientific practice of dissection prompted new and insightful ideas about the human body. This collection of essays explores the impact of anatomical knowledge on wider issues of learning and culture. The contributors argue that the study of anatomy directly influenced the way in which emerging disciplines of study were organized.
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C O N T E N T S
Introduction – Matthew Landers
Part I: The Body as a Map
1 Early Modern Dissection and a Physical Model of Organization – Matthew Landers
2 ‘Who Will Not Force a Mad Man to be Let Blood?’ Circulation and Trade in the Early Eighteenth Century – Amy Witherbee
3 Earth’s Intelligent Body: Subterranean Systems and the Circulation of Knowledge, or, The Radius Subtending Circumnavigation – Kevin L Cope
4 ‘After and Unwonted Manner’: Anatomy and Poetical Organization in Early Modern England – Mauro Spicci
5 Subtle Bodies: The Limits of Categories in Girolamo Cardano’s De subtilitate – Sarah Parker
Part II: The Collective Body
6 Mirroring, Anatomy, Transparency: The Collective Body and the Co-opted Individual in Spencer, Hobbes and Bunyan – Nick Davis
7 From Human to Political Body and Soul: Materialism and Mortalism in the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes – Ionut Untea
8 Visualizing the Fibre-Woven Body: Nehemiah Grew’s Plant Anatomy and the Emergence of the Fibre Body – Hisao Ishizuka
9 Forms of Materialist Embodiment – Charles T Wolfe
Part III: Bodies Visualized
10 Visualizing Monsters: Anatomy as a Regulatory System – Touba Ghadessi
11 Anatomy, Newtonian Physiology and Learned Culture: The Myotomia Reformata and its Context within Georgian Scholarship – Craig Ashley Hanson
12 Art and Medicine: Creative Complicity between Artistic Representation and Research – Filippo Pierpaolo Marino
13 The Internal Environment: Claude Bernard’s Concept and its Representation in Fantastic Voyage – Jérôme Goffette and Jonathan Simon
The Burlington Magazine, November 2012
The eighteenth century in The Burlington:
The Burlington Magazine 154 (November 2012)
A R T I C L E S
• Marjorie Trusted, “Two Eighteenth-Century Sculpture Acquisitions for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London,” pp. 773-79. Two marble sculptures, a Crouching Venus by John Nost (1702) and a relief of Julius Caesar Invading Britain by John Deare (1796), have been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
• Gauvin Alexander Bailey, “French Rococo Prints and Eighteenth-Century Altarpieces in Buenos Aires,” pp. 780-85. French Rococo designs used in altarpiece decorations in eighteenth-century Buenos Aires.
R E V I E W S
• Philip Ward-Jackson, Review of Stefano Grandesso and Laila Skjøthaug, Bertel Thorvaldsen, 1770–1844 (Milan: Silvana, 2010), pp. 798-99.
• Mark Stocker, Review of Mary Ann Steggles and Richard Barnes, British Sculpture in India: New Views and Old Memories (Kirstead, Norfolk: Frontier Publishing, 2011), pp. 800-01.
• Christopher Baker, Review of the exhibition and catalogue The English Prize: The Capture of the Westmorland, an Episode of the Grand Tour (2012), pp. 817-18.
Exhibition | Coaches from Versailles on View at Arras
From the exhibition website:
Roulez Carrosses! Le Château de Versailles à Arras
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras, 17 March 2012 — 10 November 2013
Curated by Béatrix Saule, Jean-Louis Libourel, and Hélène Delalex
Roulez Carrosses!, the inaugural exhibition of the partnership signed in 2011 between the Château de Versailles, the City of Arras and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region, is a landmark event. It is the first French exhibition to be devoted to horse-drawn vehicles. Berlin coaches, royal and imperial carriages from the Versailles collection have all taken the road for Arras, to be admired here until November 2013. The Musée des Beaux-Arts is thus hosting paintings, sculptures, sledges, sedan chairs, horse harnesses and several outstanding carriages such as the coaches of Napoleon I’s marriage procession, Charles X’s coronation coach or the impressive funeral hearse of Louis XVIII. From Louis XIV to the Third Republic, these little-known vehicles will offer a journey through the History of France. Chronologically displayed over 1,000 m², these works are set against a backdrop of innovative scenography combining reconstructions, activities, immersion and multimedia. The exhibition provides an opportunity to discover Versailles and its collections whilst at the same time highlighting the historical links between Arras and the former residence of kings. It will also provide an insight into the operation
and evolution of horse-drawn vehicles.
Curatorship
Béatrix Saule, Director of the Musée National des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
Jean-Louis Libourel, Honorary Chief Curator of Heritage
Hélène Delalex, Heritage Conservation Manager at the Château de Versailles
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As Didier Rykner judges in his review for The Art Tribune (24 September 2012) . . .
Sedan Chair for the King’s House Versailles, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon Photo : RMNGP/G. Blot
Even if it is much longer than the usual three-month period, this is a true exhibition, not a lineup of works; it is accompanied by a beautiful scholarly catalogue on a subject which is not often studied; it does not replace the display of the permanent collections as the exhibition rooms occupy the space acquired at the Saint-Vast Abbey; it does not deprive visitors going to the lending museum from seeing major works there since the Musée des carrosses (a rather exaggerated term given the usual presentation conditions) is rarely open to the public; and, above all, it will result in enduring benefits for the coach collection as well as for the Musée des Beaux-Arts itself. . . .
The museum staging by Frédéric Beauclair is very well done. Paintings, sculptures and drawings round out the presentation of the carriages illustrating their use, the way they functioned and the context in which they were produced. Visitors will also discover some little-known works. . . .
The full review is available here»
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Eight short videos accompany the exhibition:
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From the Château de Versailles bookshop:
Béatrix Saule, ed., Roulez Carrosses! Le Château de Versailles à Arras (Paris: Skira Flammarion, 2012), 256 pages, ISBN: 9782081278172, 40€.
Roulez carrosses! is the first exhibition in France devoted to horse-drawn coaches and carriages and, in this case, historical examples, all totally luxurious in every detail and all different: carriages for the outings of the children of Louis XVI, a sumptuous berline for the wedding of Napoleon I, the hearse of Louis XVIII, the coronation coach of Charles X, etc. Other outstanding masterpieces from the collections of Versailles accompany them: a series of paintings by Van der Meulen, major royal portraits, or unique vehicles like these fantasy sledges in which Louis XV and then Marie-Antoinette were pulled over the snow-covered walks of the park of Versailles. This book describes episodes from the political history of the palace, dynastic events and customs of the court, narrated and commented on here by eminent historians. Fans of handsome horse-drawn vehicles will discover the grand coaches for ceremonial occasions – from the “modern coach” invented in the reign of Louis XIV to the coaches for state ceremonies of the presidents of the Republic – along with their technical innovations, the refinement of their accessories and the extreme lavishness of their ornamentation, at a time when the art of French coach-building was at its apogee.
Exhibition | Nude Men in Vienna
With the advertising for this exhibition having been covered sensationally by the international press, the focus on contemporary work has obscured the late eighteenth-century offerings. Press release from the Leopold Museum:
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Nude Men from 1800 to the Present / Nackte Männer
Leopold Museum, Vienna, 19 October 2012 — 28 January 2013
Curated by Elisabeth Leopold and Tobias Natter
Ilse Haider, Mr. Big, installed at the Leopold Museum
The endless flood of images intrinsic to today’s lifestyle has given unprecedented public prominence to the depiction of male nudes. At the same time seemingly firmly established categories such as masculinity, body, and nakedness are apparently being redefined on a broad social basis, resulting in a new interpretation of male gender roles. These developments have prompted the Leopold Museum to embark on a topical as well as historical journey through the visual arts in search of the male nude, a quest leading predominantly from the longing for antiquity prevalent in art around 1800 to contemporary art. The exhibition Naked Men: Power & Powerlessness through the Ages also represents the fulfillment of the museum’s long-cherished ambition to present a counterpart to the highly successful 2006 exhibition Body – Face – Soul curated by Elisabeth Leopold, which explored the female image in art from the 16th century to the present. Thus, the current presentation constitutes a continuation of this theme, except that its focus is now on the opposite sex.
The exhibition Naked Men: Power & Powerlessness through the Ages is based on works by Egon Schiele, Richard Gerstl and Anton Kolig – three artists who are more comprehensively represented in the Leopold Museum than in any other institution and in whose oeuvre the depiction of the male nude features prominently. Schiele’s male nudes can be seen as unconditional explorations of the self, as expressions of inner emotions and as body images situated between vulnerability and provocation. Gerstl followed the tradition of Christian iconography with the first of his two life-sized self-portraits, while he elevated the fragmentation of form to a principal in the second with his wild brushstrokes. Kolig was captivated by the depiction of naked young men all his life and dedicated his drawings almost exclusively to this motif.
Based on eminent examples from its own collection and complemented by loaned works from all over Europe, the Leopold Museum’s exhibition will set out in two main directions, examining the depiction of the male nude in contemporary art, while also exploring the Old Masters’ approach to the subject from the Renaissance all the way back to antiquity. The exhibition unites examples of many different genres, including painting, sculpture, graphic arts, photography and new media, with special emphases on the following themes:
The Measure of All Things: The Male Body and Art Academies
Ever since the Renaissance, the naked male body was considered to be an important object of study and an indispensable part of the academies’ curriculum, which was one of the reasons that women were denied access to art academies for so long. The presentation affords insights into the life drawing rooms of European art academies from the Baroque period onwards and illustrates to what an extent all eyes were focused on the naked man, though he himself was the only one to remain naked.
Longing for Antiquity and the Male Ideal
For centuries, the depiction of the male nude was only legitimized by ancient art. These restrictions prompted the emergence of various artistic strategies that reinterpreted ancient ideals under the guise of antiquity. This is illustrated in the exhibition with examples from the period around 1800 up until the present.
The Naked Self
While Klimt still believed that nakedness and truth coincided in the Nuda Veritas, Schiele began to make his own body the object of his paintings. Expressionism brought with it a radical examination of the self, which saw the artists exposing themselves both physically and existentially and exploring the use of their own nudity as a sphere of political influence.
In the Sights of Women
The battle of female desire and male denial is not often addressed in the visual arts, but it has its historical sources both in the biblical story of Joseph and the Wife of Potiphar and in the ancient mythological traditions of Narcissus and Adonis. The emancipation of women as artists has brought with it a new basis for the depiction of such conflicts. Nowadays, female artists also have access to male nude models and are free to interpret and depict this motif at their will, currently often with a view to deconstructing gender and gender asymmetries.
Bathers — On the Beach
In the second half of the 19th century depictions of naked people in nature abounded. These renderings had their origin in a reassessment of man’s position in nature. Based on early depictions such as Dürer’s The Men’s Bath, the exhibition features many eminent examples of such encounters and get-togethers of naked men, from Cézanne to Mapplethorpe.
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In the United States, the English edition of the catalogue will be distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Catalogue: Elisabeth Leopold and Tobias Natter, eds., Nude Men from 1800 to the Present (Vienna: Hirmer, 2013) ISBN: 9783777458519, $50.
Rodin’s Thinker. Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Pigalle’s controversial portrayal of the philosopher Voltaire. From its earliest days, art history is rife with representations of nude men. But while there is no shortage of studies of art celebrating the female form, the male nude has suffered from relative neglect. This book seeks to correct this imbalance with a collection of paintings, sculptures, and photographs that challenge conceptions of the body and masculinity, many of which continue to have considerable cultural resonance today.
Beginning with a look at art completed in life-drawing classes popular across European academies, the book moves on to representations of masculinity throughout the French Revolution, including works by Johann Heinrich Füssli and Antonio Canova; provocative Sturm und Drang paintings by Edvard Munch and contemporaries; and late impressionist works. The unsettling self-portraits of Austrian artists Egon Schiele and Richard Gerstl exemplify an extreme candor that characterized the early twentieth century. Other twentieth-century artists whose work is included in this book are Jean Cocteau, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Nan Goldin, and Louise Bourgeois.
With nearly four hundred full-color illustrations, the book also includes insightful essays examining topics like male identity, depictions of desire in modern art, and the use of nude men in advertising.
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Note (added 2 February 2013) — The sensational coverage is likely to continue. As reported by the AFP, viewers are invited to step out of their own clothes for a special viewing on February 18, “Our museum will be a clothes-free zone for one evening. . . Nudists, naturists are welcome!”
New Title | Art & Visual Culture 1600–1850: Academy to Avant-Garde
From The Open University:
Emma Barker, ed., Art & Visual Culture 1600–1850: Academy to Avant-Garde (London: Tate Publishing, 2012), 384 pages, ISBN: 9781849760966, $32.
Part 1: City and Country
Part 2: New Worlds of Art
This investigates the art and visual culture of the period from roughly 1600 to 1850. This was the period in which a distinctly modern art world began to appear, with its own institutions and associated ideas about art and artists. The book assesses the significance and value of the labels traditionally used to define the art of this period, notably Baroque, Neo-classical and Romantic. In addition, it explores the ways in which art and visual culture were shaped by the ruling elites of different European countries, as well as considering the impact of socio-economic change and growing engagement with the world beyond Europe.
The first part addresses the period from around 1600 to about 1760. Rather than attempting a broad survey of artistic developments, this part of the book highlights the way in which the relationship between the country and the city helped to shape different cultures of visual representation in different national contexts. Material covered includes: the embodiment of religious power in the restructuring of Rome by Bernini; seventeenth-century Dutch painting and the thorny problem of realism; the development of urban London; and the new culture of British landscape parks.
The second part is concerned with the period from around 1760 to 1850. It explores some of the ways in which art and other visual forms responded to changing societies and contributed to the emergence of a recognisably modern world. It covers: the emergence of public exhibitions in Britain and France and the codification of genres and types of art; the representation of the body in Canova’s sculpture; the meeting of western travellers with Pacific islanders, as reflected in images; and the emergence of the Romantic ‘genius’.
Book Talk | Simon Werrett on Fireworks
Simon Werrett, The History of Fireworks
Ealing Central Library, 8 November 2012
Simon Werrett will give talk on his book Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Science in European History at the Ealing Central Library on November 8, 2012 at 6:15pm. Enjoy a free glass of wine courtesy of Waterstones. Green Room, Ealing Central Library, Broadway Centre, Ealing W5 5JY. The event is free, but please book in advance at reading@ealing.gov.uk or in Ealing Waterstones.
New Title | Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China
From The University of Michigan Press:
Peter N. Miller and François Louis, eds., Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500-1800 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012), 440 pages, ISBN: 978-0472118182, $65.
This book is a project in comparative history, but along two distinct axes, one historical and the other historiographical. Its purpose is to constructively juxtapose the early modern European and Chinese approaches to historical study that have been called “antiquarian.” As an exercise in historical recovery, the essays in this volume amass new information about the range of antiquarian-type scholarship on the past, on nature, and on peoples undertaken at either end of the Eurasian landmass between 1500 and 1800. As a historiographical project, the book challenges the received—and often very much under conceptualized—use of the term “antiquarian” in both European and Chinese contexts. Readers will not only learn more about the range of European and Chinese scholarship on the past—and especially the material past—but they will also be able to integrate some of the historiographical observations and corrections into new ways of conceiving of the history of historical scholarship in Europe since the Renaissance, and to reflect on the impact of these European terms on Chinese approaches to the Chinese past. This comparison is a two-way street, with the European tradition clarified by knowledge of Chinese practices, and Chinese approaches better understood when placed alongside the European ones.
Peter N. Miller is Dean and Professor at the Bard Graduate Center. François Louis is Associate Professor at the Bard Graduate Center.
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This volume is the first to juxtapose the autochthonous traditions of antiquarianism of Early Modern Europe and Late Imperial China. Rather than asking only what the West might be able to learn about China, it self-consciously and quite successfully seeks to open up new perspectives on both sides of the comparison. It moreover breaks important ground in suggesting historically traceable links between evidential learning in China and European traditions of ‘Herodotean’ historiography. —Lothar von Falkenhausen, University of California, Los Angeles
This splendid collection of essays is at once a major addition to the literature on the history of scholarship in Western Europe, a burgeoning field in its own right, and a model effort at comparative cultural history . . . The collection as a whole sheds light on areas little known even to erudite scholars. —Anthony Grafton, Princeton University
Exhibition | Bronze at The Royal Academy
Reviewed for Enfilade by Craig Ashley Hanson
Bronze
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 15 September — 9 December 2012
Curated by David Ekserdjian and Cecilia Treves
Critics have been raving about Bronze since it opened last month at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Notwithstanding the exhibition’s sweeping coverage–in terms of geography and history–I didn’t initially include it here at Enfilade as I had trouble finding eighteenth-century points of relevance. Indeed, out of dozens of objects shown across ten rooms, only a handful of works were produced during the period. And yet, now that I’ve seen the exhibition, I’m convinced dix-huitièmistes should pay attention.
Organized by theme rather than time and place, the range of works is staggering. If, in keeping with traditional historiographical models, the show begins with an achingly beautiful example from ancient Greece–a recently recovered Dancing Satyr–it quickly brings an international array of work into open and productive dialogue. On display are works from Ghana and Nigeria, Eturia and Rome, China and Japan, Northern Europe and the United States. Categories one might expect to see are well represented: ritual dining vessels from Shang dynasty tombs, classicizing work from Renaissance Florence, Buddhist work from India (including an extraordinary sixth-century Buddha Shakyamuni from Bihar). Rodin’s Age of Bronze is, of course, included. But there are surprises, too: ancient court objects from Israel (a crown, scepter, and vulture standard), sixteenth-century French spurs, a basketball by Jeff Koons. Works by Giambologna appear next to an oversized spider by Louise Bourgeois (climbing the wall, no less).
François Girardon, Laocoön and His Sons, ca. 1690 Houghton Hall, Norfolk/Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London, Roy Fox (click for more info)
While it all could have gone horribly wrong, the experience of viewing the exhibition appears to be, for most viewers, one of coherence rather than confusion, coherence derived from the thoughtful attention to the possibilities of bronze as a material. The medium is the subject in an entirely convincing, indeed revelatory manner. The varieties of objects, selected from a global vision of art history, work thanks to careful attention to exploration of seven thematic categories: figures, animals, groups, objects, reliefs, gods, and heads. Scale and texture, color and composition, the tensile strength and resulting artistic flexibility of bronze all become matters of first, rather than passing, interest.
And for the eighteenth-century? The final room of heads includes original choices: Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi’s Damned Soul of 1705 after Bernini and Anne Damer’s Mary Berry from 1793, while François Girardon’s Laocoön from Houghton Hall, ca. 1690, exerts a commanding presence in the gallery dedicated to groups. Particularly compelling for me, in that same room, is the sensitive installation of Francesco Bertos’s 1730s allegorical group of Sculpture, Arithmetic, and Architecture from the Prado. Placed alongside Giambologna’s 1576 Nessus and Deianira (a centaur abduction scene) and Alessandro Algardi’s 1647 St. Michael Overcoming the Devil, Bertos’s work appears as an entirely legible development from Renaissance humanism, to forceful Baroque religious expression, to refined Enlightened optimism. Adrian de Vries’s Hercules, Nessus and Deianira of 1622 dominates the center of the gallery, making the relationships–the similarities and differences within this 150-year period–all the more striking.
Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi, after Bernini, Damned Soul (‘Anima Dannata’), 1705-07. Bronze with golden-red lacquer patina, 39.5 cm. Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna. Photo © Liechtenstein. The Princely Collections, Vaduz-Vienna
And so historical arguments do exist within the exhibition, even if there’s no obvious central argument based on tracking change over time (it is I think one reason material from all over the world can be placed side by side so effectively). One may wish there were more eighteenth-century offerings–I’ll leave those criticisms to the sound judgment of my colleagues. But, for me, it is an exhibition that likely would make a lot more sense to eighteenth-century connoisseurs than the much more tightly focused, monographic approaches dominating exhibitions in the present age. No only is it a show I think many eighteenth-century viewers would understand (with admittedly a bit of instruction), it’s a show I think they would like.
Alongside it, the catalogue offers innovative models for thinking about different ways exhibitions generally might succeed. The book pairs beautifully with the catalogue for the 2009 exhibition Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, available–for anyone regretting that there aren’t more eighteenth-century works on
display–in the Royal Academy gift shop on the way out.
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Catalogue: Bronze (London: Royal Academy Publications, 2012), 248 pages, ISBN: 9781907533280, $65.
Bronze, long celebrated for its durability and the wide range of effects that it offers, has been prized as an artistic material in many parts of the world throughout the ages. Magnificent bronze sculptures from the ancient times have emerged unscathed after millennia on the sea bed. It is a material that has been used on all scales, from the minute to the monumental. This sumptuous catalogue examines bronze’s earliest beginnings in North Africa, the Middle East and China as it transcended tools and weaponry to become a medium of fine art. Expert authors chart the virtuousity of artists in ancient Greece and Rome; developments in Asia and Africa; bronze’s great flowering in the European Renaissance and its use in the modern era by artists such as Rodin, Picasso, Brancusi and Bourgeois.
A unique testament to the works of art that one medium has inspired, Bronze contains lavish colour plates of over 150 masterworks arranged chronologically to take the reader on a voyage through time, tracing the work of sculptors, casters and chasers through the centuries.
New Title | The Origins of the Royal Academy
From The Royal Academy:
Charles Saumarez Smith, The Company of Artists: The Origins of the Royal Academy of Arts in London (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 192 pages, ISBN: 9781408182109, $32.
On Friday 9th September 1768 an almighty row broke out within the Society of Artists. At its heart was a disagreement over the practice of art in Britain, and no amount of good humour on the part of the Society’s ‘jolly president’ could ‘persuade the disputants to lay aside their mutual Bickerings, and drown their Heartburnings in bumpers of wine’.
From this eruption emerged the Royal Academy of Arts.
An elegant and often amusing day-to-day account of these events and the two years that followed, The Company of Artists reveals the opposing models of a continental and a British art academy that divided leading artists of the day. As he explores their attempts to outmanoeuvre their fellows and win the support of King George III, Charles Saumarez Smith brings to life the characters involved and shows how they shaped the new Royal Academy of Arts, thereby changing the practice and perception of art in Britain for good.
Former director of the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery, Charles Saumarez Smith is Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts. His previous publications include The National Gallery: A Short History (2009), The National Portrait Gallery (1997) and The Building of Castle Howard (1990).
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In Charles Saumarez Smith’s blow-by-blow account of the early days, I recognise the Royal Academy as it still is today. The big ego’s. How to teach art. The status of drawing. Whether or not art stems from genius, ambition or sheer hard work. Everything that is still important and good about the Royal Academy was discussed and debated in those first few weeks.
Christopher Le Brun, President, Royal Academy of Arts
An enthralling behind the scenes look at the egos, the politics and the good and bad intentions that led to the founding of one of our most enduring cultural establishments.
Loyd Grossman, Broadcaster and heritage campaigner
In this short, neat, thorough and readable history, Charles Saumarez Smith, the current secretary and chief executive of the RA, has attempted to identify [the Royal Academy’s] unique quality… Saumarez Smith is smitten, as you will be after reading this touching and passionate love letter.
Brian Appleyard, Literary Review
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Note (added 17 October 2012) — On Thursday, 25 October, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at Sotheby’s New York (570 Lexington Avenue), Charles Saumarez Smith will be presenting remarks on the project and signing copies of the book. RSVP to Andrew Gardner at a.gardner@sothebysinstitute.com.
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