20 September 2012: 175th Anniversary British Consulate Alumni Event
6.30–8.30pm, San Francisco British Consulate, 12 Presidio Terrace, San Francisco, CA 94118
Following on from the success of our recent US alumni events, Priya Guha, British Consul General to San Francisco, and Dr Paul Thompson, Rector, request the pleasure of your company at a reception to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Royal College of Art.
If you would like to attend please RSVP by 1 September here. Valet parking provided.
16 November 2012: Alumni 175th Anniversary Reunion Event
6.30–8.30pm
To tie in with this year’s 175th anniversary we will be holding our biggest alumni event to date. Drinks, canapés and a large exhibition celebrating 175 years at the RCA will be on display. Everyone is invited but it would be great if we have lots of reunion year groups getting together and celebrating back at the RCA.
If you are interested in organising a reunion, please do get in touch here stating your Name, Course and Graduation Year.
175 Exhibition Press Release
As part of a yearlong series of celebrations around its 175th anniversary, the Royal College of Art will present a major exhibition featuring work by faculty and students spanning three centuries, including Christopher Dresser, Gertrude Jekyll, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir James Dyson, Eric Parry, David Adjaye, Tord Boontje, Jasper Morrison, Constantin Grcic and Thomas Heatherwick in architecture and design; and Elizabeth Butler, Edouard Lanteri, Francis Derwent Wood, Dame Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore OM, Dame Bridget Riley, David Hockney OM, Gavin Turk, the Chapman Brothers, Tracey Emin, Chris Ofili, Peter Doigt, George Shaw and Spartacus Chetywnd in fine art. In visual communication and film, work by Edward Johnson, Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Sir Ridley Scott, the Quay Brothers, Graphic Thought Facility, Why Not? and Neville Brody will be exhibited.
Exploring the evolution of the renowned institution, since its founding in 1837 to the present day, the exhibition will offer a contemporary assessment of the impact of new thinking on art education, the relationship of art to industry and the reforms and debates affecting British art education across three centuries. Work by former students and staff from all of the 23 programmes currently offered at the RCA, alongside historic disciplines such as stained glass and holography, is curated according to four broad themes: Art for Industry, Public Purpose, Personal Expression and Political Expression.
Established in 1837 under Prime Minister Lord Melbourne as the Government School of Design, the School was created in order to train young craftsmen and artisans for work in the ceramics, textiles and ornamental crafts of Britain’s manufacturing industries. For over a century, both the government departments overseeing the RCA and the College itself wrestled with whether or not the RCA should include fine art in its curriculum. Art – more particularly applied art – was seen solely in terms of its usefulness to industry and its ability to raise the standards of British manufactured goods and in turn, balance of trade.
The 'Art for Industry' section of the exhibition will present the enrolment of painters such as Richard Redgrave into the service of industry and how a preoccupation with the need for design to contribute to British industry has been debated across three centuries, by Henry Cole in the nineteenth century to James Dyson in the twenty-first.
'Public Purpose' focuses on the RCA’s enduring role in transforming Britain’s health, transport and built environment, from the hospital beds and ward equipment of the NHS to the post-war new towns of Stevenage, and the designs of parliament buildings and museums in Berlin and New Delhi. Moments of major public celebration have invariably involved RCA students or alumni, from the iconic Albert Hall frieze (1871) to Coventry Cathedral (1947), the Festival of Britain (1951) and of course the London 2012 Olympics. Work will be exhibited by Sir Hugh Casson, the creative mastermind of the Festival of Britain and Professor of Interior Design from 1955 to 1975; by David Mellor, whose Embassy silver cutlery was used in British embassies to present a new image of Britain abroad; and Thomas Heatherwick, who designed the acclaimed British pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010.
'Political Expression' presents the work of artists and designers whose work is aligned to a particular political cause – race, sexual identity, peace, labour and women’s movements. The section includes work by the female suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst (gaoled in Holloway Prison while a student at the RCA), David Gentleman, Peter de Francia, David Hockney, John Smith, Peter Kennard Simone Brewster, and former President of the Student Union 2010, Ekua McMorris.
'Personal Expression' contrasts the Victorian notion of art in service to industry, morality or religion with a twentieth-century concept of fine art solely as an act of personal creative expression. In this section, major twentieth-century artists from Auerbach, Henry Moore, Bridget Riley, Barbara Hepworth, Chris Ofili and Tracey Emin are presented. As notions of what constitutes ‘Art’ have changed over the centuries, so too, has the late twentieth-century view of ‘Design’, with the advent of critical design; celebrated designers from Ron Arad and Daniel Weil to partnership Dunne & Raby and Constantin Grcic challenge the concept of function, use, form and value. Many of the design works in this section question the rationalist notions of utility, the arts and crafts desire for ‘fitness of purpose’, or the International Style’s rejection of ornament.
The exhibition has been co-curated by Dr Paul Thompson, Rector of the RCA, and Robert Upstone of the Fine Art Society, formerly Head of British Modern and Contemporary Art at the Tate, and designed by Dinah Casson and Professor Neville Brody’s Research Studios. Brody and former faculty member and eminent typographer Margaret Calvert have collaborated together to create a new typeface, Calvert Brody in celebration of the RCA’s 175th anniversary. This will feature in the exhibition and be implemented during 2012 and beyond as the new ‘house style’ for the RCA.
The show is accompanied by a major publication from the Lion &
Unicorn Press, the RCA’s publishing house. A 40,000-word illustrated book, it includes essays on various facets of the RCA written by Fiona MacCarthy; Colin McDowell; Robert Upstone; Rick Poynor; Andrew Wilson (Tate); Glenn Adamson (V&A); Jane Pavitt, Joe Kerr and Paul Thompson (RCA).
The Royal College of Art is grateful for the support of its many friends in bringing this exhibition to life. Special thanks go to Chris Ingram, the Lightbox, Woking, for lending so generously to this exhibition, and to the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Royal College of Art staff featuring in the exhibition include Liz Aylieff, Alison Britton OBE, Tony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Peter Kennard, Sue Timney and Richard Wentworth CBE.