Royal Academy of Arts

This guide to the Royal Academy of Arts in London traces its founding in 1768 by King George III and its thirty-four original members, among them two women, Angelica Kauffmann and Mary Moser, in an era when few institutions would admit them at all. It follows the Academy's Life Room, where artists trained by drawing from nude models, and the rule that kept Kauffmann and Moser out of it, and turns on a group portrait the painter Johann Zoffany was commissioned to make of the Academicians at work. You'll hear how he solved the problem of showing two members who could not be present. Look for their portraits on the wall of that painting.