LIVERPOOL ACADEMY OF ARTS
Liverpool Academy of Arts was founded in Liverpool in April 1810 as a regional equivalent of the Royal Academy, London although its origins are earlier as it began as the Liverpool Society of Artists, first founded in 1769, which had a fitful existence until 1794. The instigator of the Academy was Liverpool MP, banker, and anti-slave campaigner William Roscoe (1753-1831) and the prince regent George gave his patronage for the next three years, and it was actively promoted by presidents of the Royal Academy. In its two hundred years plus history it has had more than a dozen incarnations having closed and reopened through the years. In the late 1850s it split due to major disagreements following annual prizes being awarded to the then controversial Pre-Raphaelite painters, particularly to William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) in 1852 for 'Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus' and to John Everett Millais (1829-1896) in 1857 for 'The Blind Girl'. The Academy remained nominally in existence, continuing to hold annual exhibitions, but never regaining its national importance. The current Liverpool Academy of Arts was re-established in 1988 by local sculptor Arthur Dooley (1929-1994), its aim being to carry on the work of the previous Academy headed by artist and poet Adrian Henri (1932-2000). Well over two thousand artists have shown their works at the Academy and its exhibitions attract a worldwide audience. Over the year's most exhibitions have been staged at the Walker Art Gallery but in 2007 the Academy acquired new premises in Seel Street close to the Docks. Suffolk artists who exhibited at Liverpool Academy include Lilian Russell Bell, Henry Bright, Oswald Garside, Edward Hales Griffith, Bertram Walter Priestman and Henry Brittan Willis.
Works by This Artist
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