The World's Biggest Open Show: RA Summer Exhibition 2026

Every summer since 1769, the Royal Academy throws open its Burlington House galleries to anyone who dares submit, and 2026 was no exception. The Summer Exhibition is the largest open-submission art show on the planet — a glorious, wall-to-wall jumble of painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking and architecture.

Works by Royal Academicians and famous names hang cheek-by-jowl with pieces by amateurs and emerging artists, almost all of them for sale. Part lottery, part carnival, it is one of the great democratic rituals of British art.

For visitors it's an annual treasure hunt; for artists, the thrill of being selected from many thousands of entries to hang in one of the country's grandest galleries.

Image: “Burlington House Royal Academy of Arts-London” — Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.