LONDON.- The Royal Academy of Arts’ annual Summer Exhibition, which has run continuously for more than 250 years, has chosen Maine digital montage photographer Jeffery Becton’s print, The Pilot House (42” x 63,” 2014), to be included in this year’s event. The juried show, which showcases an eclectic mix of both established and emerging artists in all media, opens on Tuesday, June 21st and runs through Sunday, August 21st.
This year’s exhibition was coordinated by Alison Wilding, RA, who worked closely with a select committee of art academicians to review 15,000 submissions, and ultimately selected a total of 1,465 for the show. Wilding was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1999, and is herself an artist and sculptor of international renown. Past summer show participants include David Hockney, Ed Ruscha, and Sir Winston Churchill, who was a Royal Academician, and artist.
Each year the Summer Exhibition jury and coordinators honor a host of curious and peculiar traditions leading up to the event, including drinking a mysterious, secret recipe “beef tea” that they are offered during the eight days that it takes to hang the show. The tradition of Varnishing Day begins with a gathering of participating artists in the courtyard, where they are formed into a procession to make their way down Piccadilly, led by a steel band. After an artists’ blessing at St. James’ Church, the artists are then, and only then, permitted to enter the gallery and see their work in the show.
Becton is widely considered a pioneer in the digital revolution, having begun experimentation as a graduate student in the Graphic Design program at Yale University in the 1970s. The artist will be honored at a private, month-long, invitation-only exhibition of his work taking place at AH Studio in London from June 20-30. Between Two Worlds, The Poetics of Coastal Spaces, Jeffery Becton & Andrea Hamilton, is co-hosted by Koman Fine Art & AH Studio in London. Koman Fine Art in Vero Beach, Florida, that is among Becton’s galleries, has been a mainstay of the seasonal gallery scene in Vero since 2002.
