Papers of the Royal Scottish Academy
- Reference:GB 1716 RSA1
- Dates of Creation:1729 - ongoing
- Name of Creator:
- Language of Material:English
- Physical Description:50 meters
Scope and Content
Papers relating to the administration, governance and financial management of the Royal Scottish Academy.
Administrative / Biographical History
The Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture [it only assumed its ‘Royal’ prefix after the granting of its Royal Charter in 1838] was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1826. Its founding members were professional artists (painters), sculptors, architects, and engravers. Its three objectives were to (1) enable annual exhibitions for the display and sale of the work of living artists, (2) provide professional teaching to sustain and nurture the artistic community, which included the provision of a library, and (3) to acquire a collection of original works of art which would form a National Collection of Scottish Art.
In Objective(1) they were seen as the successors of an independent body of Scottish, and primarily Edinburgh-based artists who had come together about 1808 to form the Society of Artists [also known as The Associated Artists - but not to be confused with those artists who were associated with the Royal Institution from 1825-30]. The Society of Artists, which included Sir Henry Raeburn, and George Watson (who would become the first President of the Scottish Academy), held a series of annual exhibitions between 1808 and 1816 and ceased to exist thereafter.
The Academy has held an Annual Exhibition since 1827 continuing uninterrupted through both World Wars, as well as a programme of other exhibitions, amongst which the former RSA Students’ Exhibition [since 2009 RSA New Contemporaries] is prominent. This has included major exhibitions mounted in 1853 (J F Lewis Watercolours), 1863 (Living and Deceased Artists), 1880 (Watercolours by Living and Deceased Artists), 1926
(Centenary), 1976 (150th Anniversary) and 2017 (Ages of Wonder, the single largest expose ever presented of the Academy’s collections including Library and Memorabilia.
In Objective(2) they were taking up the mantle of the Edinburgh School of St Luke [also known as St Luke’s Academy] which was founded in Edinburgh on 18 October 1729 but lasted for only a short period, closing about 1737[?]. The provision of teaching primarily to train young people of both sexes to design for manufacturers, was subsequently taken up by the Board of Trustees who opened a Drawing School for this purpose [known as the Trustees’ Academy] in 1760. This remained essentially an elementary school where students were encouraged to draw from casts after the antique, but had no provision for drawing from the life model. In 1858 the Academy took over the running of the former Life School of the Trustees’ Academy, and continued to deliver such training until 1932. From 1908 much of the Academy’s teaching was subsumed into the curriculum of the new Edinburgh College of Art, which the Academy played a key role in establishing. The Academy nonetheless makes a major contribution to the provision of opportunities for students and younger artists through a number of Awards and Scholarships which it administers.
In objective(3) they were custodians of one of a number of institutional collections which were in the process of being formed in Edinburgh. However, unlike the collection of the Board of Directors of the Royal Institution, that formed by the Scottish Academy was almost exclusively formed of works by living (or recently deceased) artists, mostly of Scottish birth and residence, with some notable exceptions such as William Etty.
The Academy continues to expand and enhance its permanent collections. Full object record data for which is constantly being added to the Adlib database. The core of this is the Diploma Deposit Collection; every full Academician of the Academy is obliged by the terms of their election to make an outright gift of an example of their output to the RSA Collection within a set period from their election. As part of the Collections rationalization project gaps in this collection are being filled as opportunities arise to do so, and linked to this has been the acquisition also of work by members of the former rank of Associate (ARSA, abolished in 2005) for whom the Diploma Collection deposit was not a requirement. Many of the student awards and scholarships also carry a requirement obliging the recipient or winner to deposit an example of their art with the RSA Collections.
The Royal Scottish Academy has from the outset been an artist-membership-led body, in receipt of no local authority or central Government funding. Its Members meeting in a general Assembly elect a President, Secretary, Treasurer, Keeper, Librarian, and two auditors. The day to day business is set by Standing Committee (formerly the Council) whilst other matters are decided at General Assembly meetings. Convenors and vice-convenors are appointed for the Annual and New Contemporaries exhibitions. During the history of the Academy other Committees and Sub-Committees have been formed to attend to specific areas of policy and practise.
Originally it rented rooms for its Annual Exhibitions; firstly in commercial premises at Waterloo Place, subsequently hiring rooms within the Royal Institution building at The Mound. It did the same for the provision of its own Life School, which was held initially in the Royal Institution building, then at 33 Abercromby Place, the former studio of Thomas Duncan RSA, which was leased by the Academy from John Syme RSA.
It was only with the opening of the new joint RSA-National Gallery of Scotland building on the Mound [the present day NGS] in 1855 that the Academy enjoyed a permanent base. The Academy occupied the eastern half of that building until 1911 when under the so-
called 1910 Agreement, the adjacent former Royal Institution Building was internally remodelled and refurbished at Government expense to provide what henceforth became the Royal Scottish Academy, in return for which the Academy vacated the shared RSA-NGS building and transferred a significant number of its more important artworks, including the Ettys, Wilkie’s final unfinished painting of Knox dispensing the Sacrament, David Roberts’ Rome, and Jacopo Bassano’s The Adoration of the Kings.
In 1999 the Academy was obliged to vacate the RSA Building, major structural failure to the wooden piles of its foundations having been discovered, to allow for the creation of the Playfair Project which saw the physical joining of the NGS and RSA buildings via the subterraneous Weston Link. The Administration was found temporary accommodation at Waterloo Place and the Collections were removed to the ground-floor east wing of The Dean Gallery [NGS Modern Two]. In 2017, to enable the implementation of the NGS’ Mind the Gap project to improve the display of the Scottish Collection at The Mound, the RSA Collections were once again moved, this time to the NMS secure site at Granton where the NGS external store was fitted with rolling picture racks and shelving on the first floor, East end, to accommodate the Academy’s collections including the Library and Archives.
Additional commercially leased external storage has been used by the Academy, originally from some point in the 20th century at the Jenners’ repository at Murrayfield and, since 2018 at another site.
Arrangement
RSA1/1 Billet Books
RSA1/2 Building
RSA1/3 Charters
RSA1/4 Coat of Arms
RSA1/5 Correspondence
RSA1/6 Dinners
RSA1/7 Diplomas
RSA1/8 Exhibitions
RSA1/9 Finances
RSA1/10 Medals
RSA1/11 Minute Books
RSA1/12 Nominations Books
RSA1/13 Other Organizations
RSA1/14 Robes
RSA1/15 Royalty
RSA1/16 Staff
Access Information
Open; some series restricted. Please contact the Archive to arrange access.
Related Material
Archive materials relating to the art collections of the Royal Academy are held within collection RSA2. Collected papers relating to individuals associated with the RSA are held in collection RSA3.