Events

Established in 1769, the Summer Exhibition is the largest open submission exhibition in the world. The Summer Exhibition remains a much anticipated highlight of the arts calendar, serving as a unique window on to all areas of the contemporary art world. It is the world’s largest open-submission exhibition, displaying more than 1,000 works in all styles and media, including painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, architectural models and film. The works are selected and hung by Royal Academicians and entry is open to all artists.

The first and largest retrospective of the late designer’s work to be presented in Europe, the exhibition will showcase McQueen’s visionary body of work. Spanning his 1992 MA graduate collection to his unfinished A/W 2010 collection, McQueen’s designs will be presented with the dramatic staging and sense of spectacle synonymous with his runway shows.

Savage Beauty will be presented in ten sections which will showcase the dominant themes and concepts within McQueen’s extraordinary body of work. The sections are built around garments which span the breadth of McQueen’s womenswear collections, from his MA graduation collection in 1992 to A/W 2010, McQueen’s final, unfinished collection.

Rubens and His Legacy brings together masterpieces produced during his lifetime, as well as major works by great artists who were influenced by him in the generations that followed.

We see the influence of Rubens in the prints of Picasso and Rembrandt, in the portraiture of Van Dyck, in the hunting scenes and devotional works of Delacroix, and in the landscapes of Constable and Gainsborough. It is a far reaching and remarkable legacy.  Rubens, best known for his fleshy nude women, also embraced a broad array of subjects, from religious and mythological scenes to landscapes and portraits.