The King's Artists: The Royal Academy of Arts and the Politics of British Culture 1760-1840 (Oxford Historical Monographs) - Tapa dura

offers an energising alternative perspective on the shaping of the national culture and the wider role of the creative arts in public life at this period. (Shelley King, Time Higher Education Supplement)

...the standard account of the early years of the Academy (John Bonehill, Oxford Art Journal)

Dr Hoock's book ... is beautifully produced, and the illustrations ... are well-chosen and plentiful. (John Cannon, English Historical Review)

...He makes excellent use of the Royal Academy archives to illuminate that institution's bumpy ride. (John Cannon, EHR)

With great skill and intelligence, Hoock employs rich, previously mostly untapped, archival material, as well as an impressive range of secondary resources. (Journal of British Studies)

This book is a refreshing evaluation of a powerful - and vibrant - arts organization. (Journal of British Studies)

Hoock succeeds in repositioning the Royal Academy as an active site of political exchange in British culture. This book is an intelligent, and necessary, critical addition to the study of British culture. (Journal of British Studies)

The importance of the Royal Academy in the cultural life of England has long been recognised, but Hoock's exemplary volume is the first survey of this in the widest political and institutional context. (Apollo Magazine)

Hoock's detailed examination of the archives at Burlington House, of the papers of individual artists and of official records gives this study an impressive authority. (Apollo Magazine)

The King's Artists will, as the convention has it, be a valuable addition to any library. Apart from supplying the best account that we have of the institutional history of the RA, and of its impact and consequences, it raises hosts of compelling issues, and cannot but stimulate a desire to develop and expand some of those strands. (Michael Rosenthal, Reviews in History)

This is the story of the forging of a national cultural institution in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. The Royal Academy of Arts was the dominant art school and exhibition society in London and a model for art societies across the British Isles and North America. This is the first study of its early years, re-evaluating the Academy's significance in national cultural life and its profile in an international context. Holger Hoock reassesses royal and state patronage of the arts and explores the concepts and practices of cultural patriotism and the politicization of art during the American and French Revolutions. By demonstrating how the Academy shaped the notions of an English and British school of art and influenced the emergence of the British cultural state, he illuminates the politics of national culture and the character of British public life in an age of war, revolution, and reform.