The RWA’s extensive and ever-growing permanent collection is the subject of a new book from Redcliffe Press

The Royal West of England Academy’s galleries are among the finest outside London and, although slightly forbidding to some, the magnificent building is an architectural masterpiece, a jewel in Bristol’s crown, an immense cultural asset for the city. The autumn show, showcasing work by hundreds of artists, is a highlight of the annual exhibition scene.

Less well known is the Academy’s permanent collection of paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings. The foundation for the collection was laid in 1844 when Mrs Ellen Sharples bequeathed a considerable fortune and donated a valuable collection of nineteenth-century works. Since then, and particularly in the decades following the Second World War, the collection has been expanded to the point that it is now a significant assembly of British art from the second half of the twentieth century.
The glittering array of more than 1,300 works includes many big names: Vanessa Bell, Paul Feiler, Dod Procter and William Townsend from the 1950s; Charles Cundall, Duncan Grant, John
Piper, Anne Redpath and Gilbert Spencer from the 1960s; and more recent work from Gillian Ayres, Maurice Cockrill, David Inshaw and Peter Prendergast.

The collection is augmented year on year by judicious purchases by the academy president and, since introduced by Derek Balmer in 2001, the diploma rule whereby new academicians present a work to the collection. Inevitably, purchases have reflected the tastes of the president of the time and for some decades there were weaknesses not only in the absence of modernist work from Cornwall, but also in abstract and expressionist painting. Derek Balmer and Alfred Stockham, the honorary curator, have attempted to redress this in recent years. The range of 1960s work has been strengthened by the transfer of part of the Arnolfini collection to Queen’s Road.
A selection of paintings from the storerooms is now shown in rotation in one of the academy’s side galleries, so that gradually the treasure trove is seeing the light of day. ●