Rowland Suddaby | A self portrait 1962

A gouache self-portrait of Suddaby painted in 1962, with a Royal Academy label verso. 

For conservation, Rastall Art have had the original frame carefully hand restored by the frame maker Richard Christie on The Cotswolds, a fresh mount hand painted exactly replicating the 1962 one was added, and modern UV glazing replaced the old glass to protect the painting for the future. The painting itself did not need any attention, and the finished artwork looks stunning in its newly conserved frame.

 So was this painting exhibited in the 1962 Royal Academy Summer exhibition?

Put briefly, NO. But there are perhaps many reasons why it was not in the exhibition.

1962 was a bit of a traumatic period for the RA Exhibition, which attracted 92,636 visitors (200,000 in 2024)

From research Frances Spalding Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature - writes

“A glance at The Royal Academy Illustrated 1962 makes immediately apparent how enfeebled and formulaic the dominant styles and subjects at the Summer Exhibition had become. The Academy’s regressive stance was the reason why many artists of note, among them Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, and John Piper, refused to have anything to do with the Academy. A John Piper watercolour of three Sussex church towers did, however, hang this year in the Summer Exhibition, but only because it was one of the pictures acquired under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate Gallery.” 

Going on to say,,,

“With its Summer Exhibition, the Academy had valiantly held on to a “Salon” tradition during a period when the public had lost interest in it. A decline in visitors was one of many factors troubling the Academy’s financial health at his time.”

It gets worse…

The Times agreed, its byline announcing: “Fewer Pictures, but also Fewer Good Ones, at the Year’s Academy”, while The Daily Herald damned it with faint praise: “There are fewer distressingly bad paintings in this year’s Summer Exhibition.” It was also unfortunate that a Keith Vaughan retrospective, then showing at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, gave the press the opportunity to remind the public that two years before, after seeing the Academy Summer Exhibition, Vaughan had rejected the offer of an Associate Membership.”

Help I hear you cry!

Frances Spalding continues to explain…

In 1962, there had been over 6,000 submissions and 1,221 exhibits had been chosen by a Selection Committee composed of fourteen men. Leonard Rosoman had brought a certain order to the Main Gallery, the hanging of which had been his responsibility. He filled one entire wall with a memorial display of paintings by Augustus John, who had died in the previous October (1961).

Ok even we think it would have been difficult to restrict Augustus John to 2 paintings the year after his passing.

Keep an open mind

With the greatest of respect to the Royal Academy, perhaps as a collector of Modern British Art you should just take a look at Rowland Suddaby’s self-portrait as a detailed example of his fine painting, in a superbly conserved frame, celebrate it’s mid-century style and not rely on the decisions of the RA’s selection committee of 14 men from 1962 as to whether it is fit to be exhibited. We think it is rather special.

Provenance: From the artists family.

Reference Number: 095RS