Diploma Work (1935-1950)

Charles Cundall
Demolition of Waterloo Bridge 
1935
oil on board
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Simon Elwes
Portrait of Sir Richard Sykes,
7th Baronet of Sledmere
1936
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Maurice Lambert
Carving in Paros Marble
ca. 1937
marble
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Many of Lambert's sculptures show creatures in motion, reflecting his interest in mythology and metamorphosis.  Here, the seemingly weightless woman is grasping a fish while swimming underwater.  In her monograph on the artist, Vanessa Nicholson describes the work, writing "despite the 'primitive' elements evident in the features and the heavy treatment of the hands and feet, this female nude is imbued with a classicism one step removed from modern sculpture practice of the 1930s, dominated as it was by predominantly formal concerns."

Alfred Kingsley Lawrence
Persephone
1938
oil on panel
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Reginald Eves
Portrait of Sir Joseph Barcroft
1938
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Herbert James Gunn
Pauline Waiting
1939
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"James Gunn studied at the Glasgow School of Art and Edinburgh College of Art before moving to Paris in 1911, where he entered the Académie Julian.  By 1929 he had established himself as a portrait painter in London and worked very successfully in this field, receiving commissions from prime ministers, leading literary figures and royalty.  Gunn married his second wife Pauline in 1929.  The setting for her portrait is the lobby of Claridge's."

Stanley Anderson
The Wheelwright
1939
engraving
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

James Bateman
Lullington Church
1939
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"The 12th-century church at Lullington, a tiny hamlet situated in East Sussex on the South Downs, claims to be the smallest church in England.  It measures a mere five by five metres.  Technically, it is not a church at all but the chancel of an all-but destroyed larger church that once stood on the site."  

E. Vincent Harris
Design for Nottinghamshire County Hall, Nottingham
1940
drawing
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Dod Procter
The Pearl Necklace
completed ca. 1941
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"The model in this painting features in several of Procter's work from around this time, a pattern that reflects the artist's preference to work repeatedly with models she befriended in her local area of Newlyn, Cornwall.  The style of this portrait, painted over several years, is markedly different than Procter's paintings of the 1920s.  Moving away from the solid sculptural forms of her earlier style, The Pearl Necklace is more impressionistic, with softer tonal variation.  Procter had studied at the Atelier Colarossi in Paris during 1910-11, where Impressionist and Post-Impressionist influences were dominant." 

Thomas Cantrell Dugdale
Portrait of Sir Walter Lamb
ca. 1943
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Albert Richardson
Design for reconstruction of the Physics Building,
University College London
1944
drawing
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

George Belcher
Self Portrait
1944
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Henry Lamb
Henrietta Reading
1949
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"This is a portrait of the artist's 17-year-old daughter, made as she was about to begin her studies at Somerville College, Oxford.  Henrietta was the eldest child of Henry Lamb and the writer Lady Pansy Pakenham.  She grew up in an artistic household, the family home near Salisbury playing host to her mother's literary circle that included Evelyn Waugh and John Betjeman.  From a young age Henrietta developed such a passion for reading that even her family commented on her tendency to disappear for hours on end to read anything she could get her hands on.  After studying at Oxford, Henrietta worked briefly for the magazine History Today before becoming a landscape gardener, beginning a long career working for Kensington and Chelsea borough council."      

Donald McMorran
Design for Estate Cottages, West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
1950
drawing
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Christopher Sanders
Study of Long Grass near Polstead
ca. 1950
oil on panel
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

– quoted texts adapted from Royal Academy notes

Diploma Work (1925-1935)

Walter Russell
Alice
1926
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Sir Walter Westley Russell became the Royal Academy's Keeper in 1927, continuing the work of his predecessor Charles Sims, who replaced the 'visitor' system of drop-in teaching by Royal Academicians with professional teaching staff directed by the Keeper.  In doing so Russell helped bring teaching at the Royal Academy Schools into line with the educational model of the Slade School of Fine Art, where Russell was an assistant professor before becoming Keeper."

William Reid Dick
The Child
1927
bianco del mare (i.e. limestone) statuette
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"William Reid Dick exhibited his Diploma Work at the Royal Academy in 1929, two years after exhibiting another statuette of the same title.  The statuette had emerged as a particularly popular and accessible form of sculpture in the late nineteenth century."

Charles Ricketts
Don Juan challenging the Commander
ca. 1928
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Henry Poole
Young Pan
1928
marble
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Young Pan is a late work, created in the year of Henry Poole's death.  The figure of Pan was often identified in art and literature of the early twentieth century with a specifically English Arcadianism.  Poole contrasted the smooth, defined features of the youthful Pan with the coarse marble from which they emerge – perhaps hinting at the innate 'earthiness' of Pan, often associated with fertility." 

Sydney Lee
The Red Tower
1928
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Augustus John
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1928-29
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"The 'young man' in this portrait is Augustus John's son Robin, in his early twenties at the time.  Unlike John's earlier more highly finished portraits, which demonstrate his interest in the Old Masters, this informal and apparently spontaneous study reflects the artist's awareness of recent French art.  According to his biographer Michael Holroyd, Augustus John painted energetically, 'with intense physical concentration,' often going up very close to his subject and staring hard before returning to the canvas."  

Algernon Talmage
Morning Glitter, Isle of Wight
ca. 1929
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Edwin Cooper
Design for Port of London Authority
1930
drawing, with watercolor
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Gilbert Ledward
Earth Rests
1930
Roman Stone
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Leonard Campbell Taylor
Arabella
ca. 1931
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Wilfrid De Glehn
Fishing
ca. 1932
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"De Glehn made several paintings such as this, in which young ladies are depicted enjoying themselves in idyllic outdoor settings.  Stylistically and thematically, this summery scene shows the artist's affinity with the work of John Singer Sargent.  De Glehn first came into contact with Sargent in the 1890s when assisting with Sargent's mural commission for Boston Public Library.  The pair formed a lasting friendship, and De Glehn and his wife frequently accompanied Sargent on sketching tours abroad."

Meredith Frampton
Still Life
1932
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

George Spencer Watson
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1932
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Laura Knight
Dawn
1932-33
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Terrick Williams
St Michael's Mount, Cornwall
1933
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

W. Curtis Green
London Life Association Building, King William Street
ca. 1933
drawing
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

William Russell Flint
Castanets
1933
watercolor
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Frank Dobson
Study for the Head of Pax
1933
bronze
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"This is the first study for the head of Dobson's Pax, a large sculpture of a reclining female figure in Portland stone.  Its mottled surface was produced by layering a dull-brown patina over shiny bronze.  Nowadays, Dobson is most often compared unfavourably to his contemporaries.  A review in the Independent in 1994 reads, 'one has merely to compare his Pax, carved in 1934, which might have been impressive a decade earlier, with Barbara Hepworth's two versions of Mother and Child of the same year . . . to perceive an artist progressively out of step with the taste of his own time."   
 

– quoted texts adapted from Royal Academy notes

Diploma Work (1920-1925)

William Orpen
Le Chef de l'Hotel Chatham, Paris
ca. 1921
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"The painting depicts Eugene Grossrieter, called Chester, second chef at the Hotel Chatham in Paris.  Orpen painted him with a swagger and authority ultimately derived from Manet via Velázquez.  This treatment, formerly reserved for the great and powerful, carries an extra charge as applied to a working man."   

Glyn Philpot
A Young Man
ca. 1921
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Charles Haslewood Shannon
Vanity and Sanctity
1921
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Arthur J. Davis
Design for Westminster Bank, Threadneedle Street, London
1921
drawing
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

George Harcourt
Portrait of Miss Anne Harcourt
1921
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Richard Jack
On the Moors
1921
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Eric Kennington
Abd-el-Rahman
1921
pastel on paper
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"This portrait was produced as one of the original illustrations to T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom.  Bad el Rahman is mentioned in the book as 'a runaway slave from Riadh, now freedman of Mohammed el Dheilan, the Toweihi.'  Commissioned by Lawrence, Eric Kennington travelled to the Middle East (albeit at his own expense) where he located and drew many of the individuals mentioned in the memoir."      

Giles Gilbert Scott
Design for Cathedral Church of Christ, Liverpool
1922
drawing,with added watercolor
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Bertram Priestman
Near Wareham, Dorset
1923
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Maurice Greiffenhagen
The Message
1923
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Thomas Monnington
Piediluco
ca. 1923
oil on panel
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Melton Fisher
Winifred
1924
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Philip Connard
Apollo and Daphne
1925
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Philip Connard, Keeper of the Royal Academy between 1945 and 1949, was sympathetic to the anti-modernist stance of then-President of the Royal Academy, Sir Alfred Munnings.  The world of Connard's 1920s paintings such as Apollo and Daphne is lush, sometimes idyllic, and profoundly untouched by modernity and its discontents."

Guy Dawber
Design for Ashley Chase, Dorset
ca. 1925
drawing, with added watercolor and gouache
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Alfred Hardiman
Study of a Scientist
1925
bronze
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Saying he wanted to make a masterpiece, Alfred Hardiman spent several hours every week for a year sculpting zoologist Maurice Burton in clay, before casting the bust in bronze.  Burton, a sponge specialist at the Natural History Museum, was surprised when Hardiman suggested he had a 'sculpturesque' face. "At the age of ten I had had my nose broken, flattened across my face . . . since then any remarks about my physiognomy had been unanimously unflattering."  In his unpublished autobiography Dr Burton recalled meeting Hardiman and sitting for the bust: "It was one of those days that stays vividly impressed on the memory: a day of late summer, of brilliant sunshine. We had played tennis throughout the afternoon and into the evening, when the light faded and we adjourned to the Hardiman's house, to end the day with table tennis and billiards. Alfred had jet-black hair, an aquiline nose and piercing dark eyes. His face as a whole had the aspect of a bird of prey. Whether I was playing tennis or billiards I was constantly aware that he was watching me intently and when the time came to say our 'Goodnights' he buttonholed me with the words: 'Would you be agreeable to sitting for a bust for me?' Somewhat embarrassed, I replied: 'I would be honoured.'  There was no need for the bust to talk since sculptor and sitter were seldom silent for more than a few minutes on end.  To add to this, it seems Alfred had discovered not only that I was a good sitter but I also had a good torso. So bits of me were used for several other sculptures he was working on concurrently with the bust."

– quoted texts adapted from Royal Academy notes

Diploma Work (1915-1920)

Arthur George Walker
Grief
1915
marble
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Charles Sims
Clio and the Children
1915
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Charles Sims often painted mythological scenes in everyday contexts, using friends and family members as models.  This picture depicts Clio, Muse of History, reading to a group of children in a still Sussex landscape.  It was completed before the death of the artist's eldest son in World War I.  Subsequently, Sims stained Clio's scroll with red."  

John Arnesby Brown
The Raincloud
ca. 1915
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Although Brown worked out of doors, his paintings were largely composed in the studio, as he believed that 'the artist must re-arrange, must eliminate and add and must design to suit his ideas.'  He was more interested in composing an image that conjured up the atmospheric qualities of nature than a pictorial translation of what he had seen.  Trees interested him merely as 'cliffy masses rather than individual organisms' and cattle 'as parts of a whole,' so that his profound knowledge of their anatomy is concealed rather than exposed."

Alfred Drury
Lilith
1916
marble
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"According to Hebrew folklore, Lilith, the first wife of Adam, was banished from Eden for refusing to be subservient to her husband.  She is portrayed in various mythologies as a vengeful temptress.  In the late nineteenth century the subject of Lilith attracted European  Symbolist artists and writers, as she was seen to encapsulate the dark romantic qualities of the femme fatale."  

Charles Hartwell
The Oracle
1917
marble
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Ernest Newton
Design for a House, Jouy-en-Josas near Paris
1919
drawing, with added watercolor
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Francis Derwent Wood
The Dancer
1919
bronze
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

William Strang
Portrait of Campbell Dodgson
1919
engraving
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"William Strang presented this portrait of Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum from 1912 to 1932, as his RA Diploma Work.  Elected as an Associate Engraver in 1906, Strang became a Royal Academician Engraver in 1921.  According to Philip Athill Strang, he was 'infuriated' to be elected as an engraver rather than a painter."

William Robert Colton
The Young Diana
1919
marble
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

D.Y. Cameron
Interior of Durham Cathedral
ca. 1920
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

"Cameron was initially best known as an etcher.  His architectural subjects and his landscapes were at the forefront of the British etching revival between 1880 and 1930."  

George Henry
Brambles
1920
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

John Lavery
The Van Dyck Room, Wilton
1920
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Edwin Lutyens
Design for Jaipur Column,
New Delhi
ca. 1920
drawing, with watercolor
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Julius Olsson
Sunset: Cornish Coast
ca. 1920
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Adrian Stokes
Lago Maggiore
ca. 1920
oil on canvas
(diploma work)
Royal Academy of Arts, London

– quoted texts adapted from Royal Academy notes