Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy review ★★★★★

The Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition is the world's biggest open submission art show and last year saw its 250th anniversary. It was a big year, but this year there is even more to see with 1,500 pieces chosen for display from an incredible 16,000 submissions. This number includes the usual suspects – those Royal Academicians who exhibit every year, artists such as Cornelia Parker, Paula Rego and Sir Michael Craig-Martin. But the joy of the Summer Exhibition is also discovering new talent, both professional and amateur. And, of course, the whole point of the show is to sell art.

Last year’s exhibition was coordinated by Grayson Perry RA. This year Jock McFadyen RA takes the reins, adding his curatorial spin to two major galleries. The most notable is surely the Central Hall, which contains a ‘menagerie’ of sculptures and paintings, from sorrowful pugs to a life-size tiger decorated with Tunnock’s Teacake wrappers. And the big names start here. Charles Avery’s surreal bronze sculpture of two headless dogs connected by a single long neck will be familiar to anyone who follows the progress of his fictional island Onomatopoeia, which is populated by all manner of surreal creatures.

Installation view of the Summer Exhibition 2019 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Photo: © Royal Academy of Arts / David Parry

In the same room, Banksy’s piece Keep Ou is made from a customs arch salvaged from Heathrow airport, decorated with the artist’s trademark stencilled rat. It is a timely political statement about Brexit and immigration, and the issues of the day pervade the whole exhibition with the theme of every room playing to the overarching concept, ‘the times we live in’.

One gallery, curated by Barbara Rae RA, is informed by the artist’s trips to the Arctic and contains works that tackle extinction, climate change and the environmental impact of warfare. The architecture room looks at the environment, too, with an array of designs that aim to save resources.

The Lecture Room is curated by Summer Exhibition veteran Stephen Chambers and is particularly colourful. It includes a large painting by octogenarian Rose Wylie RA, whose playful works reference popular culture with naively painted figures that cover huge, unprimed canvases. In the same room, Hew Locke’s model boats, bedecked with a miniature cargo of tropical plants, beads and general bric-a-brac hang from the ceiling like magical vessels floating through the gallery.

Installation view of the Summer Exhibition 2019 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Photo: © Royal Academy of Arts / David Parry

Outside, in the Annenberg Courtyard, Thomas Houseago’s looming sculptures make for a slightly threatening welcoming committee, dwarfing the bronze statue of Joshua Reynolds that permanently resides at the gallery’s entrance.

Overall, the standard is very high this year and the experience feels more ordered than it has previously, with imaginative flights of fancy sitting alongside artworks that tackle some of our most pressing issues. But everything is given room to breathe and no one gallery is particularly cluttered. That said, it would be easy to spend upwards of a couple of hours wandering from room to room, getting lost in the details. If you get home feeling as though you’ve missed something, click here to take a look at the Summer Exhibition Explorer online.

Click here to book tickets to the Summer Exhibition 2019