School of Genius: A History of the Royal Academy of Arts

This landmark publication is a meticulously researched and highly illustrated portrait of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, a unique institution that is both museum and art school, and is run entirely by and for artists. With unlimited access to the wonderful archives in the Royal Academy Library, and interviews with members of the Academy, author James Fenton provides a scholarly yet accessible and entertaining history of the institution, whose first president was Sir Joshua Reynolds.

As an objective onlooker, Fenton interweaves colorful Academy characters and intrigues with hard facts, shifts in policy, and changes in direction that anticipate or respond to events of the time. In particular he looks at the Academy over the 20th century: the storms the Academy has weathered, its successes and failures, and its hopes and plans for the future.