17 Artworks to Watch from the Royal Academy of Arts in 2026
- Jun 25
- 12 min read
Updated: Jun 30
In collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts, UK-based art consultancy Artelier has selected their favourite artworks to watch from the RA Editions programme. The Academy publishes an evolving collection of specially commissioned works by Royal Academicians and invited contemporary artists. Proceeds provide valuable support for the RA’s artists, schools and wider institution, which is run as an independent charity.
Jump straight to a chapter or artist:
Charlie Billingham
Katherine Jones
Patrick Caulfield
Keep informed about the art world
About Artelier
Artelier is a leading art consultancy and advisory, providing specialist art market research, commissioning services, and project management. Our team of art consultants delivers expertly curated art projects internationally, serving private residential, yacht, aviation, public, and corporate projects.
Additionally, Artelier can offer art investment guidance through our specialist ‘art concierge’ service, helping private collectors navigate the art world and acquire exceptional pieces to add to their investment portfolio.
Artworks to Watch from the Royal Academy of Arts
1. Charlie Billingham
UK
Charlie Billingham (b. 1984) takes inspiration from Georgian and Regency-era satirical prints, reworking old scenes into playful, character-filled paintings and installations. His work is packed with expressive faces, chaotic social scenes and moments of excess that poke fun at human behaviour.
He often draws inspiration from artists like Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray. Instead of focusing on the main story, he zooms in on the background details, noticing drunken figures, bawdy interactions and fleeting gestures that are spotlit into new narratives. His painting process begins with a softly, evenly primed canvas built up with multiple layers of gesso. This surface allows for oil paint brushstrokes to appear washed and watered down, whilst being layered on top of one another.
Based in London and a post-Graduate from the RA in 2013, Billingham has developed a celebrated practice that has seen his work enter major collections including the Fondation Cartier, Saatchi Collection, and HSBC Collection.
"Billingham’s bold, expressive lines capture the moral disorder and chaos of the period, laying bare the fragility of British decorum in the face of it. Yet this charged energy is softened by a palette of delicate pastel tones, giving the work a light hearted touch of warmth and humanity - qualities that, in the end, matter the most."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
2. Katherine Jones
UK
Katherine Jones RA (b. 1979) creates vibrant, richly textured prints that combine painting and traditional printmaking. Filled with repetitive motifs such as flowers, trees, houses and suns, her works weave together memories, stories and imagined landscapes.
Jones builds her prints layer by layer, creating rich surfaces full of texture, colour and depth. Her techniques include collagraphy, etchings, layering and chine collé. She often starts by adding materials such as glue and grit to her printing plates, which hold ink in different ways and create everything from soft washes to rough, tactile marks. Colours are applied individually and built up over several stages, allowing her to achieve the luminous, painterly quality that has become a hallmark of her work. The result is a print that rich in detail and variation, which you can see with wash-like marks or recessed grooves.
Based in London and elected a Royal Academician in 2022, Jones has developed a celebrated practice that has seen her work enter major collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum and Yale University.
"Printmaking is often associated with precision, control, and crisp, clean lines, but Jones brings a real sense of freedom to the medium that feels much closer to painting. We love the way she combines texture with softer, more organic forms. The work feels effortless and natural, yet that sense of fluidity is exactly what makes it so impressive."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
3. Patrick Caulfield
UK
Patrick Caulfield RA (1936–2005) is one of Britain’s best-known artists, celebrated for his bold, stripped-back paintings that turn everyday objects and scenes into striking graphic images. he developed a clear, distinctive style built on flat colour, crisp outlines and to-the-point realism.
He trained at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art, where he studied alongside artists including David Hockney RA and Allen Jones RA. Although often linked to Pop Art, his influences came more from modernist painters such as Braque, Gris and Léger, which shows in his focus on structure, simplicity and clean design.
Among the works featured are The Laforgue Four, a series of posthumous screenprints inspired by the poetry of Jules Laforgue. A lifelong admirer of the poet, Caulfield was drawn to Laforgue’s blend of humour, melancholy and modern scepticism. Rather than translating the poems into images, he created visual companions that echo their atmosphere and emotional complexity. In his words, they are “complementary images, not illustrations”, honouring the openness and ambiguity at the heart of Laforgue’s work.
Elected a Royal Academician in 1993, his work has been widely exhibited at institutions including Tate Britain, the Serpentine Gallery and the Hayward Gallery, and is held in major museum collections around the world.
"Caulfield combines graphic simplicity without losing a sense of image-making. Laforgue was known for his use of everyday language to make his work feel closer to how people think and speak. This series mirrors that."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
From left to right: Patrick Caulfield RA, Untitled Laforgue Print 26 – Sunglasses, 2022, Untitled Laforgue Print 25 – Woman in Shadow, 2022, Untitled Laforgue Print 25 – Pebbles, 2022. All works are screenprints, measure 61.2 x 55.7 cm, edition of 100 (+10 APs), £1,200 (inc. VAT). Available for purchase here.
4. Sarah Pickstone
UK
Sarah Pickstone (b.1965)'s combines watercolour, oil painting and drawing to create layered, expressive compositions. Her practice often draws on literature and place, with a strong interest in women artists and writers and their role in cultural history and creative process.
Her screenprint Angelica is made from eighteen separately screened layers, reflecting her careful, process-led approach to image-making. The work pays homage to Angelica Kauffman, one of the two female founding members of the Royal Academy of Arts, and responds to the neoclassical ceiling paintings at Burlington House in London. It brings together ideas from Kauffman’s four allegorical roundels - Composition, Design, Invention and Colour - which were originally created for the Royal Academy’s ceiling. Pickstone weaves these elements together, with the face from Colour at the centre of the image. As the artist reflects "it felt like a collaboration with Kauffman herself, and above all, a celebration of the creative spirit that is at the heart of the Royal Academy.”
Pickstone has received major awards including the John Moores Painting Prize and the Rome Scholarship, and exhibits widely across the UK and internationally. Her work is held in public and private collections including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Walker Art Gallery and the British School at Rome.
"In this piece, the modern advances of printmaking are combined with the modern advances advocated by historic female figures of their time. Therefore the layers aren't just complex in technical terms; they carry a symbolic weight, creating a connection between the women who pushed for change in the past and those continuing that progress today.
-Artelier Art Consultancy
5.Sir Frank Bowling
Guyana / UK
Sir Frank Bowling (b. 1934) is a Guyanese-British artist who works across painting, printmaking and experimental studio processes. Throughout his career, he has been deeply engaged with colour, surface and materiality, continually reinventing how painting can hold memory, place and movement.
Created during a period of recovery for the artist, Octoberbloom II is a vivid abstract print that began as a small work on paper in 2009 and was later reimagined as a print in 2022. In response to themes of family, illness and healing, it emerged from naturally imposed limitations and the artist’s unending desire to invent new ways to paint. Created using polymer gravure and relief printing, it is built from sixteen layers of colour, including fluorescent and pearlescent inks, and finished by hand. The work reflects Bowling’s long-standing interest in experimentation, chance, and the fluid qualities of paint. As he has said, his aim is to "open up new ways of picturing the now, the present...spilling, dripping, brushing, spreading, bleeding liquid material: paint engaging and enacting movement." The print was produced in collaboration with Thumbprint Editions and published by Paragon Press.
Bowling has exhibited internationally, including the Tate Britain, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Sharjah Art Foundation, and Arnolfini. In 2005, he became the first Black artist elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, and he was awarded an OBE in 2008 and a knighthood in 2020 for his services to art.
"There is something distinctly biological about this image. It has a similar form to the human spine, or the twisting structure of a DNA double helix. The rich reds give it a raw, visceral intensity, while touches of gold symbolise the subject’s value in its wider fundamental role to humankind."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
6.Humphrey Ocean
UK
Humphrey Ocean (b. 1951) works across painting, drawing and print, often focusing on the overlooked details of everyday life. Whether it be cars, roads, signs, buildings and domestic scenes, much of his practice is about observation: how we move through and shape the spaces around us, and the small, accidental moments that define them. Over time, his work builds into something like a visual diary of modern Britain.
In recent years, he has become a strong advocate for printmaking. Since 2003, he has developed aquatints based on earlier drawings and etchings, and print has become one of his preferred ways of working. For this particular series, Ocean claims that "the chair is a most intimate piece of furniture, more public and shared than a bed."
Ocean has exhibited widely, including at the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Liverpool, Whitechapel Gallery and Dulwich Picture Gallery.
"In a lot of Ocean's work, we see the recognisable muted greys and blues found in the everyday British urban landscape, such as concrete and overcast clouds. In contrast, the bright yellow adds a sense of warmth, drawing attention to the comfort of domestic spaces and the small rituals that shape everyday life."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
7. Rana Begum
Bangladesh & UK
Rana Begum (b. 1977) is a British artist known for abstract works that explore colour, light and geometry. A key focus in her work is how light interacts with surfaces, and how it is absorbed, reflected or fragmented. She is also influenced by the patterns and design of Islamic art and architecture, as well as the shapes and rhythms found in urban environments. Using simple industrial materials and clean geometric structures, she works between painting, sculpture and installation.
This approach can be found in Begum's vibrant screenprint, Print 94. This edition grew from an ongoing series of spray paintings Begum has been developing over several years. Initially inspired by the paper used to test spray cans in the studio, the paintings contribute to the artist’s continued exploration into transparency, colour interaction and repetition. The result is an organic layering of colour and form that departs from Begum’s previous language of ordered geometry and minimalism.
In 1999, Begum graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design and in 2002, gained an MFA in Painting from Slade School of Fine Art. Rana Begum lives and works in London.
"This print celebrates a ritual that is often overlooked in the making of art. The process of preparing an artwork can easily be missed, yet it has its own rhythm of trial and error. Everything that leads up to the finished piece—sketching, spraying, sharpening, heating, mixing, testing, and thinking through ideas—is playfully acknowledged and honoured in this work."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
8. William Kentridge
South Africa
William Kentridge (b. 1955) is a South African artist who works in drawing, printmaking, film, performance, and opera. His work brings together ideas from politics, science, literature, and history, often exploring complex subjects through layered stories. Instead of giving clear answers, Kentridge uses uncertainty and contradiction, encouraging viewers to think about different perspectives.
A key feature of Kentridge’s work is his unique approach to drawing and animation. He repeatedly draws, erases, and redraws images, photographing each stage to create animations that reveal the traces of their own making. This process reflects his long-standing interest in memory, change, and the passage of time. These ideas also shape his printmaking, such The Pool Ahead is Not to be Trusted where Kentridge uses sugarlift aquatint. The title comes from Waiting for the Sibyl (2019), a performance combining music, voice, projection, and shadow. Created with collaborators including Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Kyle Shepherd, the work was inspired by Alexander Calder’s Work in Progress (1968) and the ancient story of the Cumaean Sibyl. According to the myth, the Sibyl wrote her prophecies on oak leaves that could be scattered by the wind, making their meaning uncertain. Kentridge draws on this image as a symbol of chance, instability, and the difficulty of interpreting the future.
His work has been widely exhibited internationally, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, and the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, and is held in major public and private collections worldwide.
"This print plays with juxtapositions and contrasts in a sort of controlled chaos. The title spills of the page and yet is embedded behind the central subject. Rough, heavy lines are paired with soft, fluid gestures, as well as capitalised words contrasting with uncapitalised ones. The figures are posed at different angles and look in different directions. It feels very active and charged."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
9.Peter Freeth
UK
Peter Freeth (b. 1938-2026) is a British painter, watercolourist and printmaker, best known for his use of aquatint. Freeth's work is informed by a wide range of influences, including music, poetry, folk songs, photography and observations from everyday life. Exploring themes of knowledge, power and human experience, his subject matter may range broadly, but he is particularly interested in translating narrative and emotional complexity into visual form.
This print shows Prospero, the main character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-11). As both a powerful magician and the Duke of Milan, Prospero is a figure torn between intellectual exploration and political duty. Freeth explores this tension, highlighting the balance between imagination, knowledge, and innovation on one hand, and leadership and responsibility on the other. Through the combination of engraving, etching and aquatint, he creates an image that is both structurally precise and richly atmospheric, using tonal variation and line to convey the psychological depth of the subject.
His work is held in numerous public collections, including the Ashmolean Museum, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
"The use of aquatint is perfect for the subject matter. We can easily imagine Prospero alone on his island, looking out to sea during a moment of crisis and isolation. The rich tonal qualities capture both the harsh, gritty conditions of island life and the darkness of his emotional state, reflecting the difficult place he finds himself in emotionally and mentally."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
10. Cathie Pilkington
UK
Cathie Pilkington (b. 1968) is a British artist whose works across sculpture, installation and printmaking. Her primary practice is figurative sculpture, where she critically reconsiders ideas of traditions and how they're represented. Using carefully painted sculptural forms in environments made of props, studio furniture and found materials, she is characterised for her form of “art historical fly-tipping”.
While she explores how sculpture occupies space, creates meaning and disrupts expectations of display, her printmaking explores these concerns into two-dimensional form, translating sculptural ideas into flattened, graphic space. Through this process, she continues to explore relationships between body, object and setting, while testing how sculptural thinking can be reconfigured through image-based media.
Pilkington studied at Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art. She was elected a Royal Academician in 2014, served as Professor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools from 2015 to 2019, and was appointed Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools in 2020.
"This series challenges traditional ideas of the domestic space which is typically associated with safety, comfort and gentle femininity. Instead, it is presented as eerie and unsettling. In doing so, the works show how an excess of this can become uncomfortable rather than reassuring."
-Artelier Art Consultancy
Ready to Invest in Originals & Limited-Editions?
Artelier is your partner in navigating the art world. Our Art Concierge service, powered by seasoned art consultants, excels in identifying budding talents and meticulously curating collections tailored to your investment objectives. As a turn-key art consultancy, we work diligently to curate a collection from research to our framing service and installation.
For further insights, delve into our free, comprehensive industry guide, and feel free to reach out for personalised guidance on your investment journey.
Keep Informed about the Art World
Art is in our DNA. As art consultants, we act as mediators between artists, clients, and the industries they engage with. As these industries evolve, our mission is to stay ahead of shifts through unceasing curiosity and analytical precision. By scrutinising emerging trends and fostering originality, we deliver forward-thinking insights and strategies for today’s art collectors.
Read other articles written by Artelier:
Author & Researcher
Ella Forster
Writer: View profile
With a BA (Hons) in History and French and three years of writing experience for online magazines and museums, Ella is a skilled researcher in critical art theory, with a strong commitment to making art education accessible to everyone.