Art Academies and Art Academy Schemes in Britain and Ireland, 1600-1770

David Allen. The Interior of the Foulis Academy of Fine Arts. c.1761. oil on canvas. 33 x 40.6 cm. Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, GLAHA_43390.

Before (and after) the establishment of the Royal Academy in London in 1768, there were numerous individuals and associations that proposed or implemented plans to create academies for the arts in Britain and Ireland. Examples can be traced to at least the early seventeenth century. To date, there is no publication that pulls together a single list of academies and/or academy schemes in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland. In the chart below, I bring together the manuscript and secondary literature to offer a timeline of schemes, proposals, recommendations, and attempts to establish academies for the arts in Britain and Ireland between 1600 and 1770.

The data in this chart is limited to those projects which framed themselves as addressing the needs of the state (whether utilizing the language of royal patronage, national prestige, or public utility) or the need to connect communities of artists across the kingdom(s). Consequently, it does not address the important histories of guilds, local drawing schools, or schools with missions that didn’t focus on the arts but which might nevertheless provide training in drawing, topography, or architecture (for example, military and grammar schools and academies).

This timeline is part of a larger project on which I have been working over the years which aims to 1) build a database of academies and learned institutions throughout Europe between 1300 and 1800 and 2) create a digital model of eighteenth-century networks of British and Irish artists and patrons and their contacts on the continent.

As will be evident to anybody familiar with the secondary literature, the chart below is deeply indebted to the work of Ilaria Bignamini. I have not included a full bibliography for each entry (the Royal Academy of London would itself require many printed pages), but rather the key starting references for anybody who would like to delve into the material further.

Cite this post as Jason M. Kelly, “Art Academies and Art Academy Schemes in Britain and Ireland, 1600-1780” (16 July 2022), https://jasonmkelly.com/jason-m-kelly/2022/7/10/art-academies-and-art-academy-schemes-in-britain-and-ireland-1600-1770.

I presented an earlier version of this timeline as part of my paper, “The Dilettanti, Art Pedagogy, and Roman Models for an Art Academy in London” on 10 December 2018 at the conference “The Roman Art world in the 18th Century and the Birth of the Art Academy in Britain” hosted by the British School at Rome and the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca.