The Royal West of England Academy

Founded in 1844, the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) was Bristol’s first art gallery, and remains the only Royal Academy outside of London. It has a distinguished membership, including artists such as Gillian Ayres and Elizabeth Blackadder; and important historic collections of British art, featuring work by artists such as Dame Elizabeth Frink, Walter Crane and Vanessa Bell.

The Department of History of Art at Bristol has worked with the RWA to develop teaching collaborations and work experience opportunities for students, with some Bristol graduates going on to professional employment at the Academy. Research by Bristol MA students has resulted in public exhibitions and enhanced the RWA’s understanding of its historic collections, while the 'New Faces' lecture series at the RWA has enabled Bristol MA students to present their own research in public. Bristol students also work as gallery stewards and guides at the RWA, and take part in the education programme.

Bristol graduate Gemma Brace was appointed Exhibitions Manager at the RWA after completing her MA in History of Art, and she has worked with the university to develop a collaborative MA unit. In 2013, she co-taught a module with Bristol lecturer Dorothy Rowe entitled Remembering Exhibitions. A group of eight MA students curated a show exploring landmark exhibitions in the history of the Academy, from British Painters in France in 1953 to Richard Long in 2000.

In 2013, Gemma Brace joined forces with Elizabeth Lloyd to set up an independent curatorial project entitled FELT, which works online, and through a series of exhibitions and events. FELT has been initiated with the aim of creating space for dialogue and generating conversation, working collaboratively with artists, writers and creative practitioners. Lloyd is also a graduate of the Bristol MA programme. She is now doing a PhD at Bristol on the practice of subjectivity in art writing. One of the functions of FELT is to present and develop the ideas she is exploring in the context of her thesis.

Bristol graduate Rhian Addison has been working as a freelance curator at the RWA since completing her MA in 2012 - her postgraduate work with the Bristol Theatre Collection is detailed here. Projects at the RWA have included the exhibition One Hundred Years: The RWA and Royal Patronage (5 September – 5 November 2013), which presents work by Academicians from the permanent collections of the RWA, alongside drawings, prints and watercolours by the same artists from the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.