History
The Royal Academy does not receive financial support from the state or crown. One of its principal sources of revenue is hosting temporary public art exhibitions. These are of the highest quality, comparable to those at the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery and leading art galleries outside the United Kingdom. In 2004 the highlights of the Academy's permanent collection went on display in the newly restored reception rooms of the original section of Burlington House, which are now known as the "John Madejski Fine Rooms".
Under the Direction of the Exhibitions Secretary Norman Rosenthal the Academy has hosted ambitious exhibitions of contemporary art including in 1997 "Sensation" the collection of work by young British Artists owned by Charles Saatchi. The show created controversy for including a painting of Myra Hindley that was vandalised while on display.
The Academy also hosts an annual Royal Academy summer exhibition of new art, which is a well known event on the London social calendar. It is not as fashionable as was the case in earlier centuries, and has been largely ignored by the trendy Brit Artists and their patrons; however Tracey Emin exhibited in the 2005 show. In March 2007 this relationship developed further when Tracey Emin accepted the Academy's invitation to become a Royal Academician, commenting in her weekly newspaper column that, "It doesn't mean that I have become more conformist; it means that the Royal Academy has become more open, which is healthy and brilliant."
The Academy has received many gifts and bequests of objects and money. Many of these gifts were used to establish Trust Funds to support the work of the Royal Academy Schools by providing "Premiums" to students displaying excellence in various artistic genre. The rapid changes that pulsed through 20th century art have left some of the older prize funds looking somewhat anachronistic. But efforts are still made to award each prize to a student producing work that bears a relation to the intentions of the original benefactor.

Activities
The Academy runs a postgraduate art school and a research library. The Royal Academy Schools, the country's oldest art school, is based in Burlington House. There are generally two exhibitions every year of work by Academy students.

Royal Academy Schools
Full membership of the academy is limited to 80 Academicians or "RAs", who may be painters, printmakers, sculptors, or architects, and must be "professionally active in Britain".
The Academy's rules are that there must always be at least 14 sculptors, 12 architects, and 8 printmakers; the balance being made up of 46 painters. New Academicians are elected by the existing RAs, and originally had to enter a Diploma Work representative of their œuvre.
Apart from kudos of being elected, full members of the Academy may expect to serve for a time on the governing council of the Academy, and to take part in various committees. Each room in the Summer Exhibition is generally hung by a different R.A.
In common with certain other Royal societies, election as President of the Royal Academy (P.R.A.) practically guarantees a knighthood, if the President is not already of that rank.
A larger number of Associates of the Royal Academy (designated "A.R.A.") are also elected, but being an A.R.A. is not a prerequisite to full membership.
Members of the public can also join the Royal Academy as "Friends" by making a financial donation; outside of public exhibitions, this is one of the RA's main sources of income.

Membership
(incomplete list)

Richard Ansdell
Francesco Bartolozzi (1768)
Agostino Carlini (1768)
Mason Chamberlin (1768)
Sir William Chambers (1768)
Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1768)
Richard Cosway (1768)
Francis Cotes (1768)
George Dance the Younger (1768; Academy professor of architecture 1798-1805)
Nathaniel Dance-Holland (1768)
Thomas Gainsborough (1768)
John Gwynn (1768)
Francis Hayman (1768; 1st Academy librarian)
Nathaniel Hone (1768)
William Hunter (1768; 1st Academy professor of anatomy)
Angelica Kauffmann (1768)
George Michael Moser (1768; 1st Academy Keeper)
Mary Moser (1768)
Joseph Nollekens (1768)
Thomas Pingo (1768)
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1768; President 1768–1792)
John Inigo Richards (1768; Academy secretary 1788–1810)
Paul Sandby (1768)
Thomas Sandby (1768; 1st Academy professor of architecture)
Dominic Serres (1768; Academy librarian 1792–1793)
Benjamin West (1768; President 1792–1805, 1806–1820)
Richard Wilson (1768)
Joseph Wilton (1768; 3rd Academy Keeper)
Johann Zoffany (1768)
Francesco Zuccarelli (1768)
Thomas Hardwick (1768-69) (silver medal winner)
Philip James de Loutherbourg (1781)
Joseph Wright (1784)
Thomas Banks (1785)
James Northcote (1787)
John Opie (1788)
John Russell (1788)
Henry Fuseli (1790; Academy professor of painting 1799–1803, 1810–1824; Academy Keeper 1803–1810?)
Ozias Humphrey (1791)
Robert Smirke (1793)
Thomas Kirk (1794)
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1794; President 1820–1830)
Richard Westall (1794)
Thomas Stothard (1794)
John Hoppner (1795)
John Flaxman (1800; Professor of Sculpture 1810–1826)
Martin Archer Shee (1800; President 1830–1850)
Sir John Soane (1802; Academy professor of architecture 1806–1837)
J. M. W. Turner (1802)
Thomas Phillips (1808; Academy professor of painting 1824–1832)
David Wilkie (1811)
Sir Richard Westmacott (1811; Professor of Sculpture 1827–1856)
Robert Smirke (1811)
William Theed (1813)
John Jackson (1817)
Edward Hodges Baily (1821)
Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (1827; President 1850–1865)
John Constable (1829)
Edwin Henry Landseer (1831)
William Clarkson Stanfield (1835)
Frederick Richard Lee (1838)
Daniel Maclise (1840)
David Roberts (1841)
William Dyce (1848)
Richard Westmacott (1849; Professor of Sculpture 1857–1868)
Sir Francis Grant (1851)
Richard Redgrave (1851)
William Powell Frith (1852)
Sydney Smirke (1859; Academy professor of architecture 1860–1865)
John Everett Millais (1863; President 1896)
Thomas Sidney Cooper (1867)
Edward Middleton Barry (1869)
James Sant (1869)
Edward Armitage (1872)
Thomas Woolner (1875; professor of sculpture 1877–1879)
Edward Poynter (1876; President 1896–1918)
William Quiller Orchardson (1877)
Henry Hugh Armstead (1880)
Edwin Long (1881)
Alfred Waterhouse (1885)
Sir Thomas Graham Jackson (1892) architect
John William Waterhouse (1895)
George Frederic Watts (1897)
Edwin Austin Abbey (1898)
Benjamin Williams Leader (1898)
Albert Chevallier Tayler (1899?)
Sir Aston Webb (1903)
Sir George Clausen (1906)
William Lionel Wyllie (1907)
James Jebusa Shannon (1909)
Henry Scott Tuke (1914)
Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1921)
Augustus John (1928)
Sir William Reid Dick (1928)
George Spencer Watson (1932)
Wilfrid de Glehn (1932)
Sir William Russell Flint (1933)
Francis Dodd (1935)
Laura Knight (1936)
Harold Knight (1937)
Vincent Harris (1942)
John Aldridge 1963
William Roberts (1966)
Eric Schilsky (1968)
Hugh Casson (1970)
Edward Ardizzone (1970)
Norman Adams (1972)
Fred Cuming (1974)
Bryan Kneale (1974)
Sir Kyffin Williams (1974)
Olwyn Bowey (1975)
Elizabeth Blackadder (1976)
Anthony Green (1977)
Eduardo Paolozzi (1979)
David Tindle (1979)
Peter Blake (1981)
William Bowyer (1981)
Tom Phillips (1984)
Donald Hamilton Fraser (1985)
Michael Kenny (1986)
Norman Ackroyd (1988)
Craigie Aitchison (1988)
Ann Christopher (1989)
Gillian Ayres (1991)
John Bellany (1991)
Kenneth Draper (1991)
David Hockney (1991)
Bill Jacklin (1991)
R B Kitaj (1991)
Joe Tilson (1991)
Sir Terry Frost (1992)
Brendan Neiland (1992)
Sir Nicholas Grimshaw (1994)
Christopher Orr (1995)
Patrick Procktor (1996)
Eva Jiřičná (1997)
Alison Wilding (1999)
Maurice Cockrill (1999)
David Nash (1999)
Gary Hume (2001)
Ian McKeever (2003)
Tracey Emin (2007)
Tony Bevan (2007) List of RAs

Other posts

The Arts Club
Royal West of England Academy