RA Summer Exhibition 2019 UPDATE + prediction re emphasis of selected work

This is an update about

• the background of the coordinator and people who make up the Selection and Hanging Committee of the Summer Exhibition 2019 at the Royal Academy of Arts. 
• my prediction as to the emphasis of work that will be selected from the Open Entry for the Summer Exhibition.

(See my blog post RA Summer Exhibition 2019: Call for 12,000 entries)

I'm very pleased to see that the RA is now commenting on my Facebook Posts! This time to provide an alert that there is an update on the names of the Co-ordinator and the Selection and Hanging Committee.

It's always good to have any comments about the overall intentions of the coordinator BEFORE people enter their work.  Maybe next year, the information can be again be available before the call to entries goes online?

So who's doing what?

Selecting Committee, Royal Academy, circa 1892 by Reginald Cleaver | pen and ink | circa 1892 NPG 4245© National Portrait Gallery, London (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

PS I do wish there were more contemporary illustrations or paintings of the Selection Committee at work. Photos don't quite do it for me!

Summer Exhibition 2019 Coordinator

Jock McFadyen RA is the 2019 Coordinator of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.

The most important thing for prospective entrants to know is that he is a PAINTER and a landscape painter at that!

He has this to say about his proposals for this Summer Exhibition

"The focus this year will be on artwork in all media which responds to the contemporary world. I hope to welcome back many of the artists who have been exhibiting at the Royal Academy over the last few years and look forward to presenting new artists in the exhibition."

I thought contemporary art was by definition a response to the contemporary world - but heyho!

It does rather feel like a statement written by a press relations person which says nothing and rules nobody in and nobody out. I much preferred the one we had one from Grayson Perry last year.

However as I went on and found out more about him, his statement of what he wants assumes more importance in the context of the road he has travelled with his painting (see below)

Clues as to who Jock McFadyen is can be found in:

• his website
• his RA Profile - I recommend you watch the video
• this 2017 profile of Jock McFadyen, Painter on Spitalfields Life
• his entry in Wikipedia

Some facts:

• born in Paisley in 1950, attended Saturday morning classes at Glasgow School of Art, 
• 1966, age 15, he moved to England
• studied at Chelsea Art School (BA in 1976 and MA in 1977)
• 1970s - made his name with schematic narrative painting - which he has since left behind. He describes his work at the time as 'ironic and clever' - a painter's commentary on the art (anything but painting) being done by other artists at the time
• 1980-2005 - he taught one day a week at the Slade School of Art
• lives and works in London (and Edinburgh) - specifically "lived and worked in the East End since 1978, with studios in Butler’s Wharf, Bow and the Truman Brewery before arriving in London Fields twenty years ago." - which coincidentally is the same amount of time I've lived in the East End.

Hidden behind an old terrace facing London Fields is a back street with a scrapyard and a car repair garage, and a row of anonymous industrial units where painter Jock McFadyen has his studio. You enter through a narrow alley round the back to discover Jock in his lair, a scrawny Scotsman with freckles, tufts of ginger hair, and beady eyes that look right through you. Jock McFadyen, Painter | Spitalfields Life

• 1981 - artist in residence at the National Gallery. He painted the world he observed and what he saw on the streets. His work was figurative and included people and gradually became more realistic
• 1991 - Prize winner John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 17
• 1991 - commissioned by the Artistic Records Committee of the Imperial War Museum to record events surrounding the dismantling of the Berlin Wall 
• 1992 - to date: He has focused on painting places - landscape painting on a monumental scale as a serious comment on life in the modern urban environment (with no figures). He also likes road paintings and panavision.
• 2005 - He and his wife founded "The Grey Gallery" in 2005. It's nomadic and works with artists, musicians and writers. McFadyen is said to be keen on working across disciplines and working outside of the existing dealer/ curator conventions. 
• he has had over 40 solo exhibitions 
• his work is held by 30 public collections as well as private and corporate collections in Britain and abroad.  Interesting most of the public collections are located in the Midlands, North and Scotland.
• 2012 Elected Royal Academician

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