The sculptures of Conrad Shawcross RA explore subjects that lie on the borders of geometry and philosophy, physics and metaphysics. For the 2015 Summer Exhibition's Annenberg Courtyard installation, Shawcross created a large-scale, immersive work consisting of five cloud-like forms in steel. Made from thousands of tetrahedrons, these forms stand at over six metres high and weigh five tonnes each. Shawcross explains: "The Greeks considered the tetrahedron to represent the very essence of matter. In this huge work I have taken this form as my 'brick', growing these chaotic, diverging forms that will float above the heads of visitors." As well as photography of the works in situ, this publication contains working drawings, structural diagrams and a text by the architecture writer Patrick Sykes. AUTHOR: Patrick Sykes is an architecture writer and radio producer whose work is featured or forthcoming in The Times, Mas Context, Warscapes, Polis and on BBC Radio 4. SELLING POINTS: * Includes structural diagrams showing the construction of this dramatic work * Features an exclusive interview with the artist himself * Conrad Shawcross is the youngest living Royal Academician 80 colour

On 1 May 1780, England's Royal Academy of Arts opened its twelfth annual exhibition, the first to be held in the magnificent rooms of William Chambers's newly built Somerset House. For the next fifty-seven years, the Great Room of Somerset House effectively defined the centre of the London art world - the place where viewers had to see and be seen, and where artists fiercely vied for the attention of potential buyers. Such great exhibition performers as Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence, John Constable, J. M. W. Turner and David Wilkie sharpened their skills during these stimulating decades. In this extensively illustrated book, seventeen renowned experts revisit and assess the Somerset House years, a period of great achievement and central importance in the history of British art. The book's contributors view the Somerset House phenomenon from a broad range of perspectives. They deal with the physical nature of the exhibitions, the audience, the role of the press, the Royal Academy's place within the larger world of urban entertainments, and how the conditions of display shaped and even transformed patterns of art production. In addition, they explore such topics as the tactics of exhibitors in different genres of painting, the exhibition histories of works in other media and the impact on foreign artists and observers of an increasingly self-confident national school of British art.

First published in the 1870s, the 'Royal Academy Illustrated' presents the highlights of each year's show and is a fascinating barometer of changing artistic tastes. A cross-section of the works on display is included, accompanied by installation shots of the galleries.