Angelica Kauffman: Royal Academician

Delightful exhibition at Tate Britain looking at Angelica Kauffman, one of the two female founding members of the Royal Academy to mark its 250th anniversary.

 
The show looked at Kauffman’s art and how she was treated by the art establishment. To a modern eye her work is a bit sweet but it is very much of its time. The commentary suggested she was exploring gender and identity but I’m not sure I saw that in the work although I did like the confident self-portraits. There was a good selection of work and the pictures were shown against beautiful blue walls which gave them a sense of period.
 
It was a nice idea to include a projection of an engraving of a lost picture shown at the size of the original. A lot of Kauffman’s work was history paintings but this is under represented in galleries.  There were also sketches for the ceilings she designed for original Royal Academy, now the Courtauld. My favourite picture was a stunning chalk portrait of Benjamin West.
 
Although she was a founding member of the Royal Academy Kauffman couldn’t take part in all the groups business and was not allowed into the life room as a woman. In the famous picture of the founder members in the life room Kaufman and the other female member, Mary Moser, are shown as portraits on the wall. The next female Royal Academicians were not appointed until the 1930s.  Contemporaries tended to focus on her personal life rather than her art.
 
Closes on 21 October 2018


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