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Royal Academy of Arts Review

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Royal Academy of Arts

Address: Burlington House, Piccadilly, Mayfair, London, W1J 0BD
Phone: 020/7300-8000; 020/7300-5760 recorded information
www.royalacademy.org.uk

Category: Museums/Galleries
Location: St. James's and Mayfair

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Fodor's Review:

Burlington House was built in the Palladian style for the Earl of Burlington around 1720, and it's one of the few surviving mansions from that period. The chief occupant today is the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), and a statue of the academy's first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, with artist's palette in hand, is prominent in the piazza of light stone with fountains by Sir Phillip King. It's a tranquil, elegant space for sculpture exhibits. Further exhibition space has been afforded with the opening of 6 Burlington Gardens, the old Museum of Mankind, reached through the elegant walkway of Burlington Arcade. The collection houses works by Academicians past and present as well as its most prized piece, the Taddei Tondo (a circular bas-relief) by Michelangelo of the Madonna and Child, on display in the Sackler Wing. The RA has an active program of temporary exhibitions; hugely successful exhibitions here have included Van Dyck (1999), a Rodin retrospective (2006), and "Byzantium" (2008). Every June for the past 240 years, the RA has put on its Summer Exhibition, a huge and always surprising collection of sculpture and painting by living Royal Academicians and a plethora of other contemporary artists.

Cost: From £8; prices vary with exhibition
Open: Sat.-Thurs. 10-6, Fri. 10-10
Tube: Piccadilly Circus, Green Park

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