Royal Society of British Artists - Annual Exhibition 2021

The Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists is the first exhibition actually hung on the walls of the Galleries this year.

I'll be going to see this exhibition soon - but in the meantime 

• BELOW you can find out more about it.
• View the artwork online - in various ways (links below) 

Next week I'll write my review of the exhibition - focusing on 

• the overall impression
• artwork which impressed me

The Annual Exhibition on the RBA website

Exhibition Details

The exhibition opened to the public on Thursday and continues until Saturday 24th April

You MUST have a ticket booked in advance to see the exhibition. You can book tickets here

There is no cafe - and there appear to be no seats in the Galleries - which means I'm not going to be staying long given my ankle. I hope they were only moved out for the filming of the Virtual View and have not been removed. There's a lot of older people who visit this exhibition - and many of us need to sit down from time to time.

Here's Mick Davies PRBA Hon RBSA President - the President of the RBA (and a lovely man!) - with a few words about the exhibition

We have all been challenged by the 2020 pandemic and adverse weather conditions, so it makes it all the more exhilarating and joyful to engage in something as uplifting and inspiring as this exhibition.

Our Patron, Sponsors and Prize-givers have reaffirmed their support for this prestigious event and we thank each and every one of them. This year we have had a record-breaking number of works submitted by non-members and I wish to congratulate those whose work is represented in the show. There were many others we would like to have included, had we had the space to do so – it was such a difficult task for our Selection Committee.

 

The Online Exhibition

You can see individual artworks on

• the Mall Galleries exhibition webpage - clicking an image takes you to options to see bigger versions and sales details and how to make an enquiry about an individual work in the show.
• The RBA website 2021 Exhibition webpage - which I actually much prefer as 
• you can keep scrolling down and the images grow and them recede as you pass then
• there's no need to keep clicking through to the next page (very irritating after the first few clicks)
• if you click an image you can see more artwork by that artist - and also enquire about it.  I always think artwork has more appeal when you can see it alongside other works by the same artist. For those with lots of available artwork, you still have to click through pages to see it all.

You can also view a virtual view of the hung exhibition on the Mall Galleries website.

Virtual view of the East Gallery
Still too bright and "flashed out" for my liking - the gallery is NEVER this bright

You need to navigate the galleries using the dolls house or plan view (bottom left of above image) 

Unfortunately the virtual view is deficient in two aspects - compared to other software I've used in the last year:

• if you click on an artwork in the virtual view, it does NOT tell you the basic details i.e. title / artist / media / price.
• if you share a link to a view it only provides a link to the whole exhibition - which takes you back to the predetermined starting point in the West Gallery

Awards and Prizes

The Mall Galleries blog posts (below) show you who won what - which is great because I'll miss this bit out of my review! :)

Congratulations to all those who won an award

Royal Society of British Artists Prize & Award Winners 2021

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four