Royal Academy of Arts: 250th Anniversary

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cormack]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Academy of Arts, and the contribution made by the Academy to the artistic and cultural life of the country.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I suppose the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and I have one thing in common: we can both go to bed tonight secure in the knowledge that we will between us have commanded the headlines tomorrow.

It has been a very frustrating period for me recently because I have had to follow what has been going on in your Lordships’ House and in another place from a hospital room. I am delighted to be back and able to introduce a debate, the keynote of which I think can be complete and enthusiastic unanimity. What I seek to do this evening is to draw attention to one of our truly great national institutions as it comes towards the end of a very special year in its history.

The Royal Academy is celebrating 250 years of remarkable contribution to our national life. There is not a Member in your Lordships’ House, nor indeed in the other place, who does not have some cause to be thankful for what the Royal Academy has done in upholding standards, giving opportunities, providing education and providing real continuity through a period from the reign of George III to the reign of Elizabeth II. There are many in your Lordships’ House—I think my noble friend Lord Crathorne will touch on this in more detail later—who have cause to be thankful because when I, together with the late Andrew Faulds, founded the all-party arts and heritage group way back in 1974, one of the very first institutions we visited was the Royal Academy, and we have been welcome ever since. I do not think a single year has gone by without at least a couple of visits to remarkable exhibitions.

The Royal Academy is unique—I use the word properly—in that it is an institution that is run by artists, sculptors and architects for artists, sculptors and architects, and is an institution that has provided stimulus, training and education of the highest order. Its first president was, of course, the great Sir Joshua Reynolds. It all came about because just over 250 years ago the architect William Chambers took a deputation to wait upon the king with a petition signed by some 40-odd artists asking for this institution to be established, and it was. During the 19th century, some of our greatest artists were trained in its schools, including Constable, Turner, Soane and Lawrence. The list is endless and illustrious and it has brought enormous benefit to our nation as a result.

The Royal Academy began not in Burlington House, where it is now, but in Somerset House, which was designed for it. It has provided a series of exhibitions which have stimulated the intellectual life of the nation in a very remarkable way. Of course we all know the summer exhibitions, and this year not only was there an extra large summer exhibition, but there was also an exhibition which displayed some of the treasures that had appeared in exhibitions from 1768 onwards. We know the Royal Academy not just for the summer exhibitions but for the other wonderful exhibitions. It has been a showcase for art of the highest international calibre. I could spend the whole evening, not just the few minutes allocated to me, talking about these things, but I shall just highlight perhaps the first of the great international exhibitions, the Italian exhibition of 1930, which was not without controversy because its most notable visitor was Mussolini. It was, however, an extraordinary exhibition, bringing together works by Donatello, Raphael and all the great Italian artists of the Renaissance. Just five years later, there was a truly remarkable Chinese exhibition.

One could go on and on, but I just want to talk about this year, because at the beginning of this year, we had something quite amazing: the recreation of much of the greatest of the royal collections, the collection of Charles I. Many of those great pictures were dispersed during that period of philistinism, which we know as the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Because of the generosity of loaners and the ingenuity of scholars, however, earlier this year the Charles I exhibition brought together so many of the things that that great connoisseur had collected. It is interesting that Charles I and George IV, who had varying reputations, nevertheless were among the greatest collectors that this country has ever known.

One of the stars of the exhibition earlier this year was that wonderful triple portrait of Charles I by van Dyck, done by the artist for Bernini to create a sculpture, which sadly perished in the fire at Whitehall Palace at the end of the 17th century. I have a particular interest in the triple portrait because I was able to borrow it last year for an exhibition that I arranged in Lincoln. This year we had it in the Royal Academy and it was a link between the two royal collectors, because although it was, of course, painted for Charles I, it was George IV as Prince Regent who rescued it when he went on a buying expedition to Rome in the early years of the 19th century. At the moment there is a very different but spectacular exhibition “Oceania”. Any of your Lordships who have not seen it should certainly go before it closes.

This year, we have seen a fantastic expansion of the Royal Academy to include the Burlington Gardens buildings. They have been visited since May by a million people. That is really quite a remarkable statistic. Again, if your Lordships have not been there, I hope you will go because they have made use of these new galleries and exhibition spaces to display such things as the very best possible and near-contemporary copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper”. Hie thee there if you have not been already.

Of course, all this has been done during the presidency of Christopher Le Brun, a painter—it is very apposite that it should be a painter who is the president this year—and the tenure of Sir Charles Saumarez Smith, who still rejoices in the name of “secretary”. They have added on the words “chief executive”, but I like organisations that still have, as their chief officer, a secretary. He has been a brilliant one and is retiring at the end of this year, justifiably having been knighted, with the thanks of all of those who have regard for the centrality of the Royal Academy as a marvellous institution.

All this has been achieved without government funding. No Governments of any persuasion have provided funding for the Royal Academy. It has been fortunate in receiving legacies and great donations, but it has been industrious in raising money itself. It does, however, benefit from two government contributions. First, no exhibition of great note can be held anywhere these days without government indemnity, and the academy has been a great beneficiary there. Secondly, it has the security of a 999-year lease on a peppercorn rent.

That is wonderful but draws a sharp contrast. As a fellow of one of the learned societies in the courtyard of Burlington House—I am an antiquary, but there are the astronomers, geologists, chemists and Linnaeans —we all have our premises on 10-year renewable leases. It would be a wonderful way to put the crown on the year of celebration if we could be given a degree of parity with the Royal Academy. I just sow the seed and hope that my noble friend will pass it to those who may be in a position to nurture it.

What of the future? I fear I must utter the awful word “Brexit”, because the secretary has indicated to me that there is real concern about the future of the schools and European participation in them after 29 March—or after the transition period. It is important that we take this on board because, as we leave the European Union, we must recognise that some of our greatest national jewels are our great educational and artistic institutions, of which the Royal Academy is one and the courtyard societies are others. It would also help the academy very much if the catalyst scheme of the Heritage Lottery Fund, whereby grants were given to match individual donation, could be reintroduced.

I end as I began—I am told that because of the small number of speakers, to all of whom I am extremely grateful, I can have a couple of minutes of injury time, which is very appropriate having just come out of hospital. The academy is worthy of celebration and applause by all of us and I very much hope that as it moves into its 251st year, it can look forward to a 300th anniversary of equal splendour.