Image: Exterior view of the RWA, 2025. Khali Ackford, kolabstudios
The Royal West of England Academy in Bristol will mark the bicentenary of the Royal Scottish Academy with "Celebrating Together: RSA/RWA", on view in its Kenny Gallery from 3 November 2026 to 10 January 2027. The exhibition brings together work made over the past 200 years by past and present Academicians of both institutions.
According to the RWA, the Royal Scottish Academy has supported the artists and architects who shaped Scotland's cultural landscape for two centuries, and the exhibition presents that history as a legacy shared across the border. Tracing how artistic practice has changed over that period, it places historical work alongside contemporary pieces.
The exhibition is curated by the artist Janette Kerr, a past president of the RWA and an honorary member of the RSA, who also shows her own work. In the curator's view, pairing the two academies shows how communities far apart geographically can be linked by a common visual language, and the dialogue between artists of different generations brings out the connections between the two cultural landscapes.
The contemporary section features artists working in the South West of England who have professional or personal ties to Scotland, among them Gareth Fisher, president of the RSA and an honorary member of the RWA, Debbie Lee, Will Maw and Midge Naylor.
From the RWA's permanent collection come twentieth-century works by artists who formed links between the two academies, including Dame Elizabeth Blackadder and Anne Redpath, both members of the RSA and the RWA, alongside Alastair Flattely, Ian Fleming, James Martin, Arthur Edwards Milne and Margaret Thomas.
The Academy presents the exchange between the RSA and the RWA as an ongoing, connected community that continues to shape British art, and argues through the pairing of old and new works that art moves freely across borders.
Kerr will discuss her practice and the thinking behind the exhibition at a Meet the Artist event on Saturday 7 November at 12pm, followed by questions from the audience.
