Summer's Back!

Keith Bradbrook
Jul 25
2 min read

The last couple of Summer Exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London were real disappointments. As always there was lots of art that doesn’t appeal to me, not my cup of tea, but I feel I can usually appreciate the talent behind it. But in recent times the technical talent wasn’t really there. Works from the usual masters, such as the late Norman Ackroyd who always delights, were not in that category but, for me, a large percentage of the pieces from the unknowns and nearly-so’s were below par.

Not this year though. The 2025 Summer Exhibition, which I visited a few weeks ago, is back to form and almost all the rooms are festooned with good works and, which is not always the case, laid out with a sense of their collective spirit and not shoved in just to fill up the space.

This year’s hit for me was a tiny work, The Calming by Elke Thönnes – an etching with aquatint – and I was obviously not alone as there were lots of red dots on the frame showing how many people wanted a print copy. I am a fan of small almost postcard-sized paintings so I was naturally attracted to Elke’s piece but it was a lovely and memorable image.

Elke Thönnes The Calming — Elke Thönnes *The Calming*

Another work that very much caught my eye was the reverse of the compact – a huge piece on the wall of room 111, Jakob’s Dream, by Anselm Kiefer, a German painter and sculptor. This piece – emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, gold leaf and sediment of electrolysis on canvas – dominated the surroundings and was extremely evocative.

Anselm Kiefer's Jakob's Dream — Anselm Kiefer's *Jakob's Dream*

A shout-out too for another interesting glazed ceramic pot by the ever-wonderful Grayson Perry standing there is all its cutting-edge beauty in its glass case.