So the summer party art race begins. The Royal Academy last night kicked off the now weekly conveyor of champagne-soaked bashes at London’s top, arty institutions. Kick off it did, with a heaving, glitzy do packed with stars and big spenders.
Unlike other summer parties, the RA Summer Exhibition is an opportunity to shop; running every year since 1769, this year’s iteration included over 1,700 works, most of which are for sale. Old hands queued along Piccadilly before the doors opened at 6:30pm, and made a beeline for the sales desk which sprung into action at 6:45pm.
Inside, guests play one of two games: guess the price of a work, or buy one and get everyone to guess which is yours.
So, collectors and art industry types joined this year’s ritzy committee: Lashana Lynch, Damson Idris, Michael Ward, Sheila Atim, Nick Grimshaw, Vick Hope and Claudia Winkleman (who stayed for an hour, before sneaking out under the curtain fringe). They were joined by a handful of people worth pointing out across the room; Dame Kristin Scott-Thomas, in a beige, corduroy suit; Jennifer Saunders, who wore a silk, crane-print dress and Neneh Cherry, who was also on the committee, and arrived arm-in-arm with her daughter, singer Mabel.
Novelist Zadie Smith and DJ Annie Mac were contenders for best dressed thanks, in part, to Smith’s JW Anderson frog clutch. Presenter Clara Amfo and British Vogue’s Susan Bender Whitfield arrived in the same cobalt blue David Koma dress (and laughed it off, Sex and The City style) while Emma Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath, spun about in her tomato-red Dolce & Gabbana number.
Guests posed in front of a vast, intestine-esque sculpture which filled the courtyard, which was looked on carefully by its maker, artist Nicola Turner. She cheerily explained its origins: she stopped an Icelandic farmer burning the wool, before soaking it in an oil spill and crafting this showpiece.
Grand National type badges allowed for the top brass to huddle in a VIP room, complete with DJs, an oyster bar, sprawling cheese board and posh cocktails by Drinks Fusion and Amathus Drinks. By 9:30pm Sekou, a 19 year-old rising star, sang in the courtyard and was enchanting, before Saunders legged it across the road in her platform heels to the Fortnum and Mason lifts. Naturally, everyone who was anyone followed her lead — then danced into the night.
Inside the RA Summer Exhibition opening party
