LONDON - Three of the John Madejski Fine Rooms have been re-hung, exhibiting fresh, key works from the Royal Academy’s Collection, many of which have never been shown together.  The restored John Madejski Fine Rooms are dedicated to the display of highlights from the Royal Academy’s Collection of art, architecture and sculpture dating from the mid 18^th century to the present day. The Royal Academy’s Collection comprises mostly British works, and includes works by renowned painters such as Reynolds, Gainsborough, Constable, Turner, Stanley Spencer and David Hockney.

Chronologically this display from the Academy’s Collection begins and ends with two brooding Welsh landscapes.  The effect of J.M.W. Turner’s Dolbadern Castle is heightened by historical narrative, whereas Kyffin Williams’s Dafydd Williams includes a contemporary portrait of a hill farmer who appears almost as monumental as the landscape he inhabits.  Paintings of the English countryside reveal a strong sense of place, such as John O’Connor’s melancholic, pastoral vision of a harvest moon over a Suffolk landscape.  Other artists in the exhibition were inspired by travels in different countries.  Freddie Gore’s paintings celebrate Majorcan landscape.  They can be seen alongside John Singer Sargent’s peaceful Italian garden and Sir Winston Churchill’s idyllic vision of the South of France.  COUNCIL & REYNOLDS ROOMS until 17 December 2006.

To coincide with Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape, The John Madejski Fine Rooms have been re-hung with a display of more than 20 landscape paintings drawn from the Royal Academy's Collection.  Ranging from JMW Turner's Dolbadern Castle (1800) to Dafydd Williams on the Mountain (c. 1970) by Sir Kyffin Williams, via rarely-seen diploma works by Victorian masters of the genre, the display also includes works by Sir Winston Churchill, John Singer Sargent, Wilfrid de Glehn, Frederick Gore and Sir Roger de Grey.

The Royal Academy’s Collection is a little-known national treasure comprising some 1000 paintings, 350 sculptures, 16,000 prints, drawings and photographs, a unique archive of artists’ correspondence, as well as nationally important collections of rare books, silver and plaster casts.  The works on display range in date from not long after the founding of the Academy in 1768, right up to examples by artists working today emphasizing an unbroken link between the Royal Academy and British art history over the past three centuries.  Named in recognition of a major donation towards their renovation by John Madejski, the suite of six rooms have been restored to their former Neo-Palladian glory.

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