‘DISCOURSE: Reynolds to Rego (250 years of prints by Royal Academicians, from the School of Art Collections)’, exhibition at the School of Art Gallery, 11/6 – 28/9/2018

Open: 10am-5pm, Monday-Friday

Marking both the centenary of the teaching of art at Aberystwyth University and 250 years of the Royal Academy of Arts, this exhibition of prints by and after Royal Academicians sheds light on the evolving role of print practice as a means of reproduction, communication and creative expression. It examines changes in attitude towards printmaking over two hundred years, from founding president Sir Joshua Reynolds’ discourses on art as the product of the mind ‘not the industry of the hands’ to contemporary conversations with the language of print. ‘What is a well-chosen collection of pictures,’ Reynolds mused, ‘but walls hung round with thoughts?’

This ‘well-chosen collection of pictures’ presents works by 100 Academicians represented in the School of Art Museum collections including prints by or after Joshua Reynolds, Henry Fuseli, J. M. W. Turner, John Everett Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, Frederic Lord Leighton, Augustus John, Laura Knight, Eduardo Paolozzi, Allen Jones, David Hockney, Paula Rego, Eileen Cooper and Anne Desmet.