Professor Sir Albert Edward Richardson, P.R.A. (London 1880-1964 Bedfordshire)

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more

PRESIDENTIAL HONOURS 'For my grandfather, the Royal Academy was first of all a bulwark of tradition with its Georgian beginnings and secondly an independent art school in a sea of state control. His stature could win respect for it from men like Bracken as well as humanizing the mystique and jargon of art for the ordinary person at the turnstiles. As the election day 7 December approached, he took rather more interest in the part he had to play and was quite delighted when The Times telephoned a week beforehand and asked for his photograph. When the day arrived, he was extremely excited, not to say agitated, His diary, which he wrote up by degrees as each hour passed, is full of nervous expectancy. 'Then came a pause while the news was conveyed by telephone to Her Majesty the Queen. Thirteen minutes later royal approval was given, then I found myself in the Presidential Chair speaking to my Brother Academicians, what a moment, what sensations.'' S. Houfe, The Professor

Professor Sir Albert Edward Richardson, P.R.A. (London 1880-1964 Bedfordshire)

'The Starecase': The Royal Academy, a Private View, 1962

Details

Professor Sir Albert Edward Richardson, P.R.A. (London 1880-1964 Bedfordshire)
'The Starecase': The Royal Academy, a Private View, 1962
signed, inscribed and dated 'The Starecase/at the Royal Academy/......study/AER 1962' (lower right)
pencil and watercolour, on paper
22 7/8 x 25 3/8 in. (58.2 x 64.1 cm.)
Together with a smaller study of the same view, by the same hand (2)

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, 1962, no. 719.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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Lot Essay

'The Starecase' in Professor Richardson's title refers to Thomas Rowlandson's Exhibition Stare Case, circa 1800, which humorously depicts crowds of eager viewers tumbling down the staircase at the Royal Academy. Rowlandson's view shows the first Royal Academy exhibition at Sir William Chamber's newly rebuilt Somerset House in 1780. The first exhibition attracted some 61,381 visitors which inevitably resulted in an overcrowded scene. Professor Richardson's watercolour shows a large crowd of contemporary visitors attending a private view at the Royal Academy in Burlington House in 1962, the Academy's home from 1867.

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