MAKING A MARK: Review: Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Annual Exhibition 2023

Last week I visited the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers (RMS) at what looks like becoming their NEW home at the Bankside Gallery on the South bank of the Thames - next to Tate Modern.

RMS Display Cabinets at the Bankside Gallery

Reasons for the move to the Bankside Gallery are at the end. I'd suggest they are worth noting by any other art societies who've previously hired the Mall Galleries for their exhibitions.

For those not familiar with miniature art Anthony Lester provides a good explanation

With a maximum size of 6 x 4 inches (15.24 x 10.16 cm), the painting of miniatures demands self-discipline, for where large pictures give some latitude in composition, miniatures are unforgiving of the least mistake; a tolerance of even a millimetre is hardly permitted. Apart from their quality and beauty, they have much appeal because of their size and, with stunning works available from a few hundred pounds, affordability is an enticement too.

More helpful information and tips are provided on the RMS website

RMS Annual Exhibition

The exhibition is open daily from 11-6pm until 6pm on Saturday 8th July.

Entry is free and the essential exhibition catalogue is £3.

Nearest tubes and rail stations are at Blackfriars Railway and Tube Station and St Paul's (across the Millenium Bridge)

The RMS Annual Exhibition at the Bankside Gallery

I have to say I think the Bankside Gallery suits the RMS annual exhibition very well.

There is ample space for all the cabinets which display the miniatures so very well.
The Gallery's own sketchbook display cabinets could also be used for excellent displays of the miniature sculpture.
The lighting is very good - plus there is of course lots of clerestory lighting which also improves the look of the exhibition. (The North Galleries at the Mall have become rather cave-like and claustrophobic of late with only a tiny chink of natural light following "improvements" compared to the previous incarnation)

View as you enter the Gallery

Overall, initial impressions were good and the artwork all looked excellent on display. I gather the consensus at the Private View (which I missed due to being at a Press View at Compton Varney - of which more tomorrow) was that there were lots of excellent reasons to make this the Society's "new home" and I have to concur that seems like a very sensible decision.

Hopefully, next year they'll be back at the Bankside Gallery - but maybe not so close to the Annual Exhibition of the Hilliard Society which always takes place in June in Wells, in Somerset. These are the two premier miniature exhibitions in the UK and it would be great to get a bit more space between their exhibition dates. I hope some suitable arrangement can be negotiated with the Bankside Gallery

The last annual exhibition I saw in person was in 2019 - after which there were dislocations due to the pandemic and issues with exhibiting at the Mall Galleries.

To me, the standard of artwork seems to be:

as good as ever in terms of the quality of the artwork on display, much of which is excellent
still leaning more towards what I'd call "traditional" subject matter. I liked those that were 'very traditional' and more contemporary.

Sales and Commissions

I also noted that

the level of sales looked very good. Indeed one artist has sold her entire exhibit - but she was painting birds on mounted feathers!
the RMS now maintains the whole exhibit online until the next exhibition so that there continues to be opportunities for artists to sell their artwork
the RMS is also doing more this year to encourage visitors to the exhibition to ask about commissions. I think that's a very sensible idea and one which might well generate more commissions.

Prizes and Awards

I'm not going to list them all as there's such a lot! You can see the artworks which won prizes and awards on the RHS website.

One of the things this society does really well is it offers lots of awards at the annual exhibition - for a variety of different reasons or awarded by different people. They are always on the lookout for new types of miniature art and innovation - and excellence in execution.

The Gold Memorial Bowl - the premier award which miniature artists can only win once - was won by Anne Mortimer RMS SBA for her Woodland Primroses which I thought was delightful and brilliantly executed. I'm not surprised it won!

The RMS Gold Memorial Bowl was won by
Woodland Primroses by Anne Mortimer RMS SBA

The RMS Group Exhibit Award went to
Jenny Musker VPRMS MASF TWASI WFM
for her collection of miniatures of natural history and botanical subject matter
(watercolour on polymin)

It was pleasing to see two new prizes for

Young Artist Award

18-30 - won by Jack Savage - Self portrait
age 16-17 - won by Annabelle Higgins - Serenity

The Innovation Award - won by Dana Kerr (Instagram)

The NEW Elizabeth Meek Young Artist Award (18-30) was won by
a "self portrait" by Jack Savage - which was amusing.
oil on wood, 3” x 3”

i started this painting quite a while ago, and took a long break from it because i lost momentum. the only way i could get the momentum back to finish it was to change it quite drastically and turn it into something that felt new and different :-) swipe to the end to see this finished result compared to what it looked like before. Jack Savage

Dana Kerr - inaugural winner of the Innovation Award
meeting Philip Mould who opened the RMS Annual Exhibition 2023

Other artwork on display

I particularly liked the Persian style miniatures produced by Valery Greeley RMS HS. They included one to mark the coronation of King Charles III which I thought very appropriate. I made encouraging noises about her producing more next year!

I really liked Coronation by Valerie Greeley RMS HS
(watercolour, gold leaf and shell gold on paper)

This is Valerie with her paintings

Valerie Greeley with her exhibit
the top row and the one on the left are all painted in the Persian Style

I really liked the set of miniatures by veteran miniature painter Bill Mundy.

A splendid set of King Henry VIII and his six wives by RMS Veteran
Bill Mundy RMS HS MAA MASF

In general I'm not a fan of the larger artworks hung above the cabinets which are not miniatures and I found somewhat distracting given the variation in size and spacing. I think there's some scope to come up with a better solution for the use of this space.

I've now uploaded images from my visit to an album on my Facebook Page

Demonstrations

This was Vice President Paul Eaton demonstrating how he creates his bronze sculptures - starting by working in wax.

Demonstration by Paul Eaton VPRMS MAA MASF MPSGS HS
who is the current Vice President for Sculpture at the RMS

Next week, there are a number of other demonstrations in different media by various members of the RMS

Monday 3rd July, Linda Kracht - Watercolour on vellum
Tuesday 4th July, Tom Mulliner - Still life, using water mixable oils
Wednesday 5th July, Alison Griffin - Acrylic on board
Thursday 6th July, Michael Coe - Portrait miniature with watercolour on vellum
Friday 7th July, Helen White - Medieval manuscript decoration
Saturday 8th July, Claire Russell - Verre églomisé (gold leaf on glass)

The main sculpture cabinet
containing the Gold Memorial Bowl (top shelf) and sculptures by different artists
including the President (second shelf) and Vice President - Sculpture (third shelf)

A rather frustrating website

In the context of a new start and a new direction on marketing for the RMS, I think it's maybe also time to update and overhaul the website - which rather reminds me of the ones around some 15 years ago.

While it does translate into suitable formats for mobile devices, in my opinion, it's not completely up to date with all current requirements for a good art society website - especially one which wants to encourage sales by and commissions for its members.

In particular, I found it very frustrating that

I could not search for an artist and find all their artwork in the exhibition and/or for sale via the website.
Members do not have any sort of bio page or details of how to contact them
the thumbnails of artwork in the exhibition do not have names of the artist or titles.

Coupled with the lack of the https prefix I think maybe it's time to move to a platform which provides more flexibility for how artwork is displayed and updated plus how information about artist members is presented - hence providing more useful content for miniature art collectors and clients.

Why move to the Bankside Gallery?

A dedicated advertisement of the Art In Miniature exhibition
outside the Bankside Gallery.

The RMS have exhibited in the North Galleries of the Mall Galleries for years and years (see my reviews at the end of this post and they'd been exhibiting there well before I started reviewing their exhibitions). They hired the North Galleries and dealt with all their own sales. So far as I was aware they were very happy with the arrangement.

However the Mall Galleries has changed its policy on hires by art societies (and other groups and individuals) which are not members of the Federation of British Artists and:

the gallery is now only hired out as a whole
the Mall Galleries appears to play no part any longer in matching up those who want to hire one or more galleries but not all three galleries - and yet they are best placed to do this and managed to do it very well for very many years!!
there is some sort of requirement to pay for catering as part of the package (whether or not you use it) - which seems very weird when you just want gallery walls.

This provides a major disservice to those wanting to exhibit in London - including

individual artists looking for a central London gallery for hire
smaller art societies - who I know have gone elsewhere as a result - and
new art societies and groups looking for a place to hold an annual exhibition.

I frankly don't understand it. It's an absolute guaranteed way of reducing the Mall Galleries reputation as the place to go for art society exhibitions - speaking as one who has spent many years attending exhibitions there and enjoying joint occupation of the galleries by one or more art societies at the same time, irrespective of whether they were members of the FBA. Plus it cannot be helping their income. One is led to wonder who the Trustees are accountable to.....

I'll be doing a blog post in future for those looking for places to exhibit in London and will highlight all the existing and new exhibition venues which are suitable for exhibitions of less than 400 artworks!!

Previous Exhibitions

You can find out more about previous exhibitions and previous prizewinners in the posts below

MAKING A MARK

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Monday, July 03, 2023

Review: Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Annual Exhibition 2023