RSMA Annual Exhibition 2025 - Award winners and Catalogue

I'm very pleased to report that one of the art societies at the Mall Galleries - the Royal Society of Marine Artists - has opened its annual exhibition - with ALL relevant information online.

Royal Society of Marine Artists - cover of Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition 2025
at the Mall Galleries

I spent the first few years of reviewing annual exhibitions by FBA Societies asking Presidents and officers why they didn't have all relevant information online at the start of the exhibition e.g.

• prizewinners - as soon as they are announced
• events during the exhibition - before they happen
• how to see the the catalogue - for those who could not visit - or might be tempted to (see below)
• how to buy the artwork - for those who could not visit

A lot of progress has been made in the years since - notably all the artwork now being online before the exhibition and also available for sale - but it's still irritating to see when marketing opportunities are lost for both art society and artists.

Hence, it's a real pleasure to go to the Mall Galleries website this morning and find everything I want to see on the RSMA page - BEFORE I visit the exhibition of the Royal Society of Marine Artists today!

A review of the exhibition will follow either tomorrow or at the weekend.

The Royal Society of Marine Artists | Annual Exhibition 2025 is at the Mall Galleries between 17th and 27th September 2025 (10am to 5pm)

• Admission £6, Free for Friends of Mall Galleries and under 25s. Concessions available.
• No booking required.
• You can see - and buy - all the artwork online here
• You can view the Events Programme
• You can view the artwork of all the award winners online - see below
• You can see entries for all the artwork selected in the catalogue - see below.

and so.....

Award Winners at the Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition

You can find the images of the artwork and the names of the artists that won prizes 

• on the Mall Galleries website - Click the "View Award Winners" button on this page
• in the catalogue - see below

The latter means that some of the award winners must have been chosen some time in advance because of the time required to set up and print a catalogue.

Catalogue of the RSMA Annual Exhibition 2025

You can buy the catalogue or read the e-catalogue without visiting the exhibition.

Most of the FBA societies now use Issuu to provide a very pleasing e-catalogue online for viewing all the pages in the catalogue - including the lists of all all the artwork. 

Examples of work by non members

The online catalogue is particularly useful for those thinking of applying in future as it gives you a good sense of 

• not only some of the artwork by non members - and the media used 
• but also the pricing by non members who were selected (ie those artists without RSMA after their name in the list of artworks at the end).

I noted that it seems many artists people have become more realistic in pricing of late - but I'll look at this in more detail in a subsequent post about sales.

One more thing....security!

One more thing which does still need fixing!

The website of the Royal Society of Marine Artists is INSECURE.

As in its prefix is http rather than https - meaning 

• Google will look down its nose at it and will not give it a high ranking in its search listings 
• it's not a great idea to link to it.

Or as Google's AI Overview puts it

You need the https prefix to encrypt your communication with a website, using the secure protocol Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) to protect your data from eavesdropping and tampering. This security is provided by an SSL certificate and ensures your information, such as passwords and payment details, remains private between your browser and the server. In addition to user trust and data integrity, search engines like Google prioritize HTTPS-secured sites, which can also improve your website's search engine ranking.

By and large I usually make it a rule now never to look at http websites.

Best to stick to the Mall Galleries website for the exhibition where you can now find all you need to know - until RSMA invests in a new website!

Diebenkorn's "Notes to myself on beginning a painting"

The year 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Richard Diebenkorn (1922–1993).

Diebenkorn was a distinguished American painter, draftsman, and printmaker

Still from the video Richard Diebenkorn on Beginning a Painting

"Notes to myself on beginning a painting" by Richard Diebenkorn

Richard Diebenkorn was an introspective man who remained skeptical of his success as an artist throughout his life. Over the years he spent countless hours sitting in a favorite chair in his studio, contemplating and looking. Perhaps it was there that he wrote thoughts that came to mind on nearby pieces of paper, some torn from other uses. The Diebenkorn Foundation

These notes were found on paper in his studio after his death.They're listed BELOW.
You can also see a digitised version of the handwritten notes in the link above.

1. Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.
2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued – except as a stimulus for further moves.
3. DO search.
4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.
5. Don’t “discover” a subject – of any kind.
6. Somehow don’t be bored but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.
7. Mistakes can’t be erased but they move you from your present position.
8. Keep thinking about Pollyanna.
9. Tolerate chaos.
10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

I first came across them on the RA website in relation to their exhibition of his work in 2015.

They're not the conventional dictums which appear again and again in many instruction books about painting. Some are impenetrable to people who are not Americans or not of a certain age

For example "Keep thinking about Pollyanna" only becomes clear when you understand that Pollyanna is a character in a 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter AND that she is an orphan with an unjustifiably optimistic attitude.

To me they're indicative of the characteristics of right brain thinking and an aversion to the factual, structured, linear, systematic approach associated with left brain thinking.

In fact they're the complete antithesis of "step by step" instruction. It's about an attitude of mind which seeks to be open to possibilities rather than learning systems for creating a painting.

This is a video of Diebenkorn speaking about beginning a painting.

The Obama Portraits Tour

Shortly after the photo of the latest Past President of the USA lands at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the official commissioned portraits of the 44th President - Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama - will leave on a year-long tour of the United States.

The Obama Portraits Tour

The Official Obama Portraits Tour has been organised by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery with the aim of reaching many people who would otherwise be unable to see the portraits.

Travelling so soon after they were unveiled is unprecedented and is explained by the reaction to the at the time (this is a link to the official page about the original unveiling) and since.

From the moment of their unveiling at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., in February 2018, the official portraits of President Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama have become iconic. Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of President Obama and Amy Sherald’s portrait of the former First Lady have inspired unprecedented responses from the public.

and 

After witnessing a woman drop to her knees in prayer before the portrait of Barack Obama, one guard said, "No other painting gets the same kind of reactions. Ever."

See also my blog post at the time The response to the Obama Portraits

The portraits are also the very first portraits of a President and his wife to be painted by African Americans - Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherrald

The five venues the Obama Portraits Tour is visiting for display are as follows. 

Links to the details are embedded in the title of the art gallery or museum.

• Art Institute of Chicago (June 18-August 15, 2021); 
• Brooklyn Museum in New York (August 27-October 24, 2021) - Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (November 7, 2021–January 2, 2022) - Resnick Pavilion
• High Museum of Art in Atlanta (January 14–March 13, 2022); 
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (March 27-May 30, 2022). no details published as yet

The choice of cities have been chosen for a mix of reasons - including both geographical and personal connections to the Obamas or the artists.

The Obama Portraits Tour will also feature 

• audio-visual elements, 
• Portrait Gallery-led teacher workshops, 
• curatorial presentations, and 
• a richly illustrated book (National Portrait Gallery and Princeton University Press).

Exhibition Catalogue: The Obama Portraits

If you are interested in the two portraits and can't get to see the portraits at either the Smithsonian or any of the five venues the portraits are touring to, you might want to consider acquiring the catalogue.

Front cover of "The Obama Portraits"

by Taína Caragol, Dorothy Moss, Richard Powell and Kim Sajet

The links below are to Amazon and will help fund the replacement for Google shutting down feedburner for email subscriptions to this blog (when I identify it!)

• The Obama Portraits (Amazon.com)
• The Obama Portraits (Amazon UK)

Publication details:

• co-published by the National Portrait Gallery and Princeton University Press
• Hardcover : 
• 152 pages
• 76 color illustrations
• Size: 7 x 9 inches

Grayson's Art Club : The Exhibition (and the television programme and the book of the exhibition!)

 Grayson's Art Club was one of the truly joyous aspects of the first lockdown. It's both 

• wonderful to hear that the Exhibition of Grayson's Art Club has been hung at Manchester Art Gallery and 
• so sad to hear the exhibition has been caught by 
• the second lockdown during November 
• the Tier 3 ban on Manchester which closes all indoor venues of entertainment - which  prevents art galleries opening.

Below I explain what we can see - and view - and read - and what we know about when the exhibition will be open.

Web Page for the Grayson's Art Club Exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery

Grayson's Art Club

Grayson’s Art Club was the best performing series from Channel 4’s #StayAtHome Academy programming, attracting over one million viewers per episode.

Grayson Perry Returns - on TV, at the British Museum and with a new exhibition!

• Each week a different theme – portraits, animals, fantasy, view from my window, home, Britain – was explored.
• Each week an enormous number of people around the country submitted their artwork for the theme that week.

He received nearly 10,000 entries, an overwhelming response to his call out. The variety of entries – using canvas, paper, photography, sculpture and mixed media – showed the imagination, skill and creativity of the nation. These works, alongside those of Grayson Perry, Philippa Perry and the invited artists and celebrities, will be on show in the exhibition. (Manchester Art Gallery)

The good news is that a second series will return to Channel 1 in 2021. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition

the exhibition will track the journey the series took as it unleashed the nation’s collective creativity under the constraints of lockdown. (Channel 4 Briefing)

Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition - of the works by the public selected by Grayson from those submitted during the television series - and those made by guest celebrities - has been hung at Manchester Art Gallery.

All the works on display are very personal visual representations of lockdown, made by the public, well-known artists and celebrities for Grayson’s Art Club. This celebration of creativity in people’s homes chronicled the changing moods of Britain in isolation, providing a unique record of this globally experienced extraordinary time.

The FREE exhibition should have opened on Wednesday 25 November 2020 and run until Sunday 18 April 2021. 

Then the second lockdown struck - and the Gallery had to postpone the opening.

When it finished Manchester was still under ervere Tier 3 restrictions - so Manchester Art Gallery still cannot open.

However the current restriction allow the making of television programmes inside art galleries - and Channel 4 got permission to make the end of the programme which was broadcast last night on Channel 4. 

The Exhibition will open when it can. Tickets will be required. 

Alongside the public’s artworks, the exhibition will feature pieces by celebrities Jenny Eclair, Noel Fielding, Harry Hill, Jessica Hynes, Joe Lycett, Kevin McLeod, Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves), Liza Tarbuck, and artists Jeremy Deller, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Chantal Joffe, Martin Parr, Raqib Shaw, David Shrigley and the Singh Twins.

I hope it comes to London too - and maybe tour the country if they can some sponsorship?

Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition (on television)

Grayson Perry with his wife Philippa

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED VIEWING

I watched Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition - the last episode of the first series of Grayson's Art Club on Channel 4 this morning over breakfast.

Here's a video trailer....

What's very special is that he visited a number of the artists - from a safe distance - and saw where they made their artwork and met the artists and heard what about what the programme meant to them.

This was prior to moving on to the plans for exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. As he explained exhibitions normally take two years to organised - whereas this one was organised in about six month. Plus more artists have contributed art than any other exhibition they'd had at the gallery in a very long while....

I spent the last part of the programme with a smile on my face and with with very wet eyes as the works were hung at Manchester Art Gallery and looked - as renowned RA Summer Exhibitor Harry Hill said "It looks just like a real art exhibition".

I find it absolutely amazing that ordinary people - responding in a way that seemed best to them - should have an opportunity to record the pandemic - such a very unique time in our social history -  through some exceptionally creative artwork.

My favourite piece by "proper artists" was the illuminated (in more ways than one) artwork - done in the manner of an illuminated book - by the Singh Twins - who I am an enormous fan of.  The artwork NHS V Covid-19:Fighting on Two Fronts, 2020 (Slaves of Fashion Series) is also available as a print from their website - as a not inexpensive fine art giclee print and an expensive signed limited edition. 

In essence it pays tribute to NHS and other frontline healthcare workers whilst presenting a satirical look at the UK Government's handling of the crisis and also challenging notions of Britishness. Special emphasis is given to the contribution of and additional risk to BAME carers working within the health sector. The main focus of the composition is an Asian nurse depicted as a modern day St George, riding a horse, with lance in hand and battling the Covid-19 virus dragon on the edge of the white cliffs of Dover. Boris Johnson is shown straddling the horse just behind the nurse, thrusting a knife into her back, whilst pulling on the horse's reins. This imagery, together, with another detail (depicting Theresa May brandishing a 'Brexit Sale', 'NHS Workers' Rights' placard and a parliamentary bill voting down a pay rise for nurses), point to the hypocrisy of a government which claps for the NHS in public but whose policy and attitude towards public sector emergency services over the years (and across different governments) has hindered and caused injury to the NHS.

Grayson's Art Club: The Book

Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition is going on my Christmas list as one of my stocking fillers!

• This 276 page paperback is the catalogue of both 
• the series and 
• the exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery
• it's not published until 17th December so I'm ordering in advance 
• It's already made #1 on the Museums and Art Collections (exhibitions and collection catalogues) listing on Amazon UK! I guarantee it will go even higher......

It's an excellent record of a very odd and very challenging time.