Which famous Royal Academician painted this? The great British art quiz

Trying to Find You 1, 2007. Photograph: Royal Academy of Arts

This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from more than 3,000 venues and by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK will set the questions.

Today, our questions are set by the Royal Academy of Arts. The RA Collection began with the foundation of the Royal Academy over 250 years ago, comprising works of art to help teach and inspire students at the RA Schools, and diploma works given by the artists themselves upon election to the Academy. The collection ranges across historic and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photography, silver and furniture, as well as the library and archive.

You can see art from the Royal Academy of Arts on Art UK here. Find out more on the collection’s website here.

1. 

   In what year was the Royal Academy of Arts founded?

   1. 1758

   2. 1768

   3. 1778

   4. 1788

2. 

   How many women were among the founding members of the Royal Academy?

   1. 0

   2. 2

   3. 6

   4. 10

3. 

   Which architect built the Royal Academy’s first purpose-built home starting in 1780?

   1. William Kent

   2. Sir Christopher Wren

   3. Inigo Jones

   4. Sir William Chambers

4. 

   Artists and architects can be elected as Royal Academicians in four artistic categories: which of the following is not one of them?

   1. Sculpture

   2. Printmaking

   3. Architecture

   4. Ceramics

5. 

   Which famous cast is pictured here?

   1. Laocoön and His Sons

   2. Ugolino and His Sons

   3. Hercules and the Hydra

   4. Apollo Belvedere

6. 

   Whose work, originally made for an exhibition at the Royal Observatory, uses batik-printed fabric to explore ideas about cultural identity?

   1. Grayson Perry RA

   2. Yinka Shonibare RA

   3. Lubaina Himid RA

   4. Stephen Farthing RA

7. 

   The artworks of which Royal Academician have been collected by the likes of Elton John, George Michael and Naomi Campbell?

   1. Antony Gormley RA

   2. Tracey Emin RA

   3. Tacita Dean RA

   4. Frank Bowling RA

8. 

   Which contemporary artist, elected RA in 2016, will represent Great Britain at the next Venice Biennale for Art?

   1. Isaac Julien RA

   2. Chantal Joffe RA

   3. Sonia Boyce RA

   4. Fiona Banner RA

Solutions

1:B - King George III signed the document to establish the Royal Academy of Arts on 10 December 1768. At the time, the RA was located on Pall Mall. It moved to old Somerset House in 1771, and to Trafalgar Square in 1837. It was decided to make Burlington House on Piccadilly the RA’s permanent home in 1867 and it has remained there ever since. Image: The Council of the Royal Academy Selecting Pictures for the Exhibition in 1875, 1876, Charles West Cope (1811–1890), Royal Academy of Arts, 2:B - They were Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser, both daughters of artists. While Moser was well-known for her paintings of flowers, Angelica Kauffman was famous as a neo-classical painter. Image: Colour, 1778–1780, Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807), Royal Academy of Arts , 3:D - Sir William Chambers was the architectural advisor to King George III and a founder member of the Royal Academy.  He was the architect for new Somerset House, which became the Academy’s first official home in 1780. Chambers worked on the project for 20 years, and it was eventually finished just after his death in 1796.  Image: Exhibition Room, Somerset House, Augustus Charles Pugin (1769–1832) and Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827), Royal Academy of Arts , 4:D - Royal Academicians are elected in one of the four following artistic categories: painting, sculpture, architecture, printmaking. For example, although Grayson Perry RA loves working with ceramics, he was elected to the RA as a printmaker. Image: Alfred Elmore in his Studio c.1858, William Maw Egley (1826–1916), Royal Academy of Arts , 5:A - The cast of Laocoön and his sons was an important didactic feature of the RA Schools: the complexity of the composition and rendering of suffering made it a compelling example of classical sculpture to emulate. It represents a Trojan priest and his sons punished by the gods for trying to warn their fellow citizens against accepting the Greek wooden horse designed by Ulysses. Image: Laocoön and His Sons c.1816, Polydoros (c.50 BC–c.0 BC) (after) and Hagesandrus (c.100 BC–c.20 BC) (after) and Athenodorus (after), Royal Academy of Arts, 6:B - Working in painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation, Shonibare examines race, class and the construction of cultural identity through incisive political commentary on the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe, and the countries' respective economic and political histories. Image: Cheeky Little Astronomer, 2013, Yinka Shonibare (b.1962) © Royal Academy of Arts, 7:B - Tracey Emin’s work is popular with several celebrity art-lovers. Emin’s own inspirations are varied and include the Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch. This painter’s influence on Emin’s artistic output is the focus of an upcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy. Image: Trying to Find You 1, 2007, Tracey Emin (b.1963), © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2020. Photo credit: Royal Academy of Arts, 8:C - Sonia Boyce's early work addressed issues of race and gender in the media and in day-to-day life through large pastel drawings and photographic collages. Her work has since shifted materially and conceptually by incorporating a variety of media such as photographs, collages, films, prints, drawings, installation and sound. Image: From Tarzan to Rambo: English Born ‘Native’ Considers her Relationship to the Constructed/Self Image and her Roots in Reconstruction, 1987, Sonia Boyce (b.1962) © Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2020. Photo credit: Tate

Scores

1. 6 and above.

   Royal Academician

2. 3 and above.

   Summer show

3. 0 and above.

   Temporary exhibitor