Modern British Sculpture at the Royal Academy of Arts

The Royal Academy of Arts is one of London's most venerable art institutions, dating back to 1768 when it was founded by a group of prominent artists and sculptors, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, to enhance their professional standing. Alongside this, they also established a school for artists, and a space for exhibitions.

Today the Royal Academy has a programme of changing exhibitions, as well as smaller displays from their permanent collection, which includes Michelangelo's Taddei Tondo. It's Summer Exhibition is unique, bringing together a large assortment of contemporary work from both known and unknown artists. Its current exhibition of Modern British Sculpture, now showing until 7^th April 2011, is one not to be missed.

My favourite parts of the exhibition are the early rooms. The first looks at two works by Edwin Lutyens and Jacob Epstein, and invites you to think about the process of design and creation for architectural settings in London - the Cenotaph on Whitehall and the BMA building (now Zimbabwe House on the Strand).

The second room leads you to think about sculpture in the way a sculptor might, and particularly a sculptor working during the early decades of the 20^th century. The Royal Academy has assembled many examples of sculpture from cultures separated by time and distance from early 20^th century Britain, but which were a source of inspiration to artists working here because they could be seen in collections such as the British Museum. The sculptor's preoccupation with material, technique, line, surface pattern, the fall of light, volume, weight, balance, narrative, portraiture, the depiction of ideas and beliefs - all these can be explored through both the new(-ish) and ancient sculptures on display here.

I found this second room particularly inspiring, and it led very naturally into a third room dominated by one piece that was almost entirely alone, Epstein's stunning Adam. Massive, unmissable, one can still imagine the intake of breath with which it was greeted when first created. For me, this piece seems to draw together all the strands of thought behind sculpture of the early C20; its power and presence is equalled only by Picasso's Guernica. It has had a difficult journey through life, ending up recently at Harewood House, but I can't imagine a more effective way to display or understand it than its present position at the RA.

Tiny, in a corner, was a snake by Henry Moore; certainly the snake belonged in the room, having shared Eden with Adam, but I couldn't help wondering at its smallness, and at the relationship between Epstein and Moore, particularly as I moved into the room occupied by two splendid works by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. After the power and impact of Adam, somehow these two seemed to me to be empty exercises, beautiful in form but lacking in emotion. For a moment I wondered how it was that Henry Moore, rather than Epstein, had become the great name in British 20^th century sculpture. But, time to readjust; British sculpture was moving on, captured here in Moore's Festival Figure and Hepworth's beautiful Single Form.

I've seen work by Anthony Caro that I've liked better. Richard Long always looks out of place in a gallery. Damien Hirst's Let's Eat Outdoors was reminiscent of a summer picnic, but thoroughly horrible to look at. My interest waned, which is not to say that someone else might not have preferred the newer works.

The Royal Academy is on Piccadilly; the nearest underground stations are Green Park & Piccadilly. It is open daily from 10am-6pm (10pm on Fridays). The Modern British Sculpture exhibition runs until 7^th April 2011. I hope the RA, and the owners of the sculpture, will not mind me using their photos as illustrations.