Royal Academy Exhibition of 1769

While the architect William Chambers was the driving force behind creation of the new organisation, the portrait painter Joshua Reynolds was elected as the first President of the Royal Academy.

The following year the Society of Artists of Great Britain staged the Exhibition of 1761 at Spring Gardens, featuring many figures who would subsequently form the Royal Academy.

[2] The newly founded Academy hired the auction rooms of Christopher Cock in Pall Mall close to St James's Palace.

[4] The American artist Benjamin West, who two decades later would become the second President of Royal Academy, submitted the history paintings The Departure of Regulus and Venus Lamenting the Death of Adonis.

Despite moving to new headquarters in the Strand for its Exhibition of 1773, defections by major artists made it increasingly vulnerable and it ceased holding regular shows.