Academy Fools

The Royal Academy School(s) in Picadilly, London, England is one of the World’s longest established art schools. Founded along with the Royal Academy of Arts by Sir Joshua Reynolds – its purpose was intended to provide schooling for professional artists.

Half practical art school and half finishing school for upper class misfits, it was always mooted that the student body consisted of ‘50% Debs and 50% Plebs’. The resulting social concoction was amusing. The mixture could produce some genuinely eccentric expressions in an artistsic sense, but good old British class values tended to prevail.

Since beginning to study art at A level, I was taught drawing by people who had graduated from the Royal Academy School(s). At first, by Anne Roberts – who had been a student when ‘Spats’ was Keeper. Then by Nicholas Ward, whose days there were, like my own, during the Greenham era, then at St. Martin’s by Eric Luke who also experienced Peter Greenham’s ‘Keepership’.

See: www.alan-dedman-artist.co.uk for further information

Alan Dedman by the wall at Burlington House. Photo: Casey Moore
Alan Dedman by the wall at Burlington House. Photo: Casey Moore
But what of other ‘Academy Fools’? Lets start with ‘Tight Mike Knight’. Mikey (from Cwmbran, sadly) appeared to me in the corridor – swaggering like a rascal; as if he were about to sell me a cheap watch. Mike Knight went to Kingston and then came to the Schools. At the time he used to look down his nose at me and tell me he was going to ‘paint like Velasquez’. Now he teaches English as a foreign language to students in the Gulf. However, we have corresponded sporadically and he tells me he still makes a buck from selling second hand watches! The very entreprenuerialism of which David Cameron speaks (lighting fires etc).
Mr Knight & accomplice

Mr Knight & accomplice