The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1771 was an art exhibition staged at Pall Mall between 24 April and 28 May 1771. It was the third annual exhibition to be organised by the Royal Academy of Arts. The exhibition attracted more than twenty thousand visitors and featured 276 works from painting, sculpture, architecture and prints.https://chronicle250.com/1771 Today it is best remembered for Benjamin West's history painting The Death of General Wolfe.McIntyre p.221
Exhibition Joshua Reynolds, President of the Royal Academy submitted his usual portraits as well as a couple of history paintings.McIntyre p.220-22 Nathaniel Dance exhibited David Garrick as Richard III at Bosworth, a portrait of the celebrated actor in one of his Shakespearian roles.Kenny p.189 The German-born artist Johann Zoffany exhibited his Portrait of George III.Fordham p.185 Thomas Gainsborough featured two landscapes along with several portraits, the latter including full-length pictures of Lord Ligonier and his wife as well as William Wade, the Master of Ceremonies at the fashionable Assembly Rooms in Bath where he was at that time based.Hamilton p.210
Benjamin West submitted nine works including The Death of General Wolfe, a modern history painting depicting the death in battle of James Wolfe during the taking of Quebec in 1759. Another neoclassical history painting The Oath of Hannibal featuring a scene from the Punic Wars also received acclaim. Angelica Kauffman showed several neoclassical history paintings including Interview of Edgar and Elfrida drawn from British history.Alexander p.143 The painter Richard Wilson submitted three landscape paintings two of which View near Wynnstay and Dinas Bran from Llangollen portrayed scenes in his native Wales and a third depicting Houghton House in Bedfordshire. William Pars exhibited eight watercolours he had produced after accompanying Viscount Palmerston on a Grand Tour.https://chronicle250.com/1771
The exhibition is portrayed in a mezzotint by Richard Earlom based on a watercolour by Michel Vincent Brandoin https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/the-exhibition-at-the-royal-academy-in-pall-mall-in-1771 It was followed by the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1772. The rival Society of Artists of Great Britain, from which the Royal Academy had split in 1768, held their own exhibition at Spring Gardens from 26 April to 8 June 1771.Hargreaves p.174
Gallery
See also Salon of 1771, contemporary exhibition in Paris Royal Academy Exhibition of 1772, the following year's exhibition at the same venue
References
Bibliography Alexander, David S. Angelica Kauffman: A Continental Artist in Georgian England. 1992. Fordham, Douglas. British Art and the Seven Years' War: Allegiance and Autonomy. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Hamilton, James. Gainsborough: A Portrait. Hachette UK, 2017. Hargreaves, Matthew. Candidates for Fame: The Society of Artists of Great Britain, 1760-1791. Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2005. Kenny, Shirley Strum (ed.) British Theatre and the Other Arts, 1660-1800. Associated University Presses, 1984. McIntyre, Ian. Joshua Reynolds: The Life and Times of the First President of the Royal Academy. Allen Lane, 2003. McNairn, Alan. Behold the Hero: General Wolfe and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century. McGill-Queen's Press, 1997