The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1804 was the thirty sixth annual Summer Exhibition of the British Royal Academy of Arts. It was held at Somerset House in London between 30 April and 16 June 1804 and featured submissions from leading artists and architects of the later Georgian era. [1]
Contents
The exhibition continued the dispute from the previous year of as a faction of artists led by John Singleton Copley tried to undermine the authority of Copley's fellow American Benjamin West as President of the Royal Academy. West defiantly displayed Hagar and Ishmael a reworked painting that had caused controversy the previous year. J.M.W. Turner submitted two oil paintings and a watercolour, a limited offering by his usual standards. [2] The following year he chose not to display at the Academy at all and held a private exhibition in his own studio. [3] John Constable did not submit any works in 1804. [4]
James Ward submitted a landscape featuring bulls fighting but his fellow Academicians criticised it as being too derivative of Rubens and he withdrew it. [5] Through his place on the hanging committee the landscape painter Joseph Farington was extremely influential in securing the positioning of various artworks. [6]
