[6] The painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president,[7] and Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary,[8] a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788.

[9] The instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40.

The founder members were Reynolds, John Baker, George Barret, Francesco Bartolozzi, Giovanni Battista Cipriani, Augustino Carlini, Charles Catton, Mason Chamberlin, William Chambers, Francis Cotes, George Dance, Nathaniel Dance, Thomas Gainsborough, John Gwynn, Francis Hayman, Nathaniel Hone the Elder, Angelica Kauffman, Jeremiah Meyer, George Michael Moser, Mary Moser, Francis Milner Newton, Edward Penny, John Inigo Richards, Paul Sandby, Thomas Sandby, Dominic Serres, Peter Toms, William Tyler, Samuel Wale, Benjamin West, Richard Wilson, Joseph Wilton, Richard Yeo, Francesco Zuccarelli.

[11] In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy's first treasurer.

[11] The Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery (designed by another Academician, William Wilkins).

[19] The RA's home in Burlington House is owned by the UK government and provided to the Academy on a peppercorn rent leasehold of 999 years.

[22] In 2004, the Academy attracted media attention for a series of financial scandals and reports of a feud between Rosenthal and other senior staff.

Art works in a variety of media are exhibited including painting, sculpture, film, architecture, photography and printmaking.

"[27] In 1977, Sir Hugh Casson founded the Friends of the Royal Academy, a charity designed to provide financial support for the institution.

[28] Pin Drop Studio hosts live events where well-known authors, actors and thinkers read a short story chosen as a response to the main exhibition programme.

[29] The RA and Pin Drop Short Story Award is an open submission writing prize, held annually along similar principles of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

Past winning stories have been read by Stephen Fry, Dame Penelope Wilton, Juliet Stevenson and Gwendoline Christie.

[30] On 10 December 2019, Rebecca Salter was elected the first female President of the Royal Academy[31] on the retirement of Sir Christopher Le Brun.

[32] In September 2007, Sir Charles Saumarez Smith became Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy, a newly created post.

[33] Saumarez Smith stepped down from the role at the end of 2018, and it was announced that Axel Rüger, director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, would fill the position from June 2019.

A key principle of the RA Schools is that their three-year post graduate programme is free of charge to every applicant offered a place.

In his fifteen Discourses delivered to pupils in the Schools between 1769 and 1790, Reynolds stressed the importance of copying the Old Masters, and of drawing from casts after the Antique and from the life model.

Subsequently, each elected Member was required to donate an artwork (known as a "Diploma Work") typical of his or her artistic output, and this practice continues today.

In the centre is West's roundel The Graces Unveiling Nature, c. 1779,[50] surrounded by panels depicting the elements, Fire, Water, Air and Earth.

Carved in Florence in 1504–06, it is the only marble by Michelangelo in the United Kingdom and represents the Virgin Mary and child with the infant St John the Baptist.