President’s Foreword

On behalf of the Council and Members of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our 211th exhibition.

Of all the huge changes that have occurred in the last year, one of the most significant and heartfelt for the Members of the RI has been, of course, the sad loss of our Patron, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

So last September, as Summer changed to Autumn, I decided to join some 250,000 other members of the public who wished to pay their respects to our Queen at the lying-in-state ceremony at Westminster Hall. For many of us, The Queen was the only monarch that we could remember, her reign spanning as it did, seven decades.

As I progressed slowly in the procession I was so impressed by the positive mood of absolutely everyone that I met on the journey.

And for this whole twelve hour period, I saw no incidents, as one might expect, of impatience or frustration.

Even under these atypical circumstances our Queen was able to engender a feeling of harmony and goodwill among complete strangers, all involved in this simple act of respect, and our British tradition of queueing.

And so, as we start a new chapter, we wish our RI Honorary Member, His Majesty King Charles III, every success in his new role and we hope that he may find some time to continue his passion for watercolour painting and indeed exhibiting with the RI, for many more years to come.

We congratulate our most recent Members, Felicity Flutter, Mari French, David Gleeson and Brendan Smith on their election last year and look forward to getting to know them even better.

Sadly we must also announce the loss of one of our Honorary Retired Members, Richard Slater, who passed away on January 12th. Richard is fondly remembered by many of our Members and we are grateful for the contribution that he made to the Institute since he joined us in 1999.

One of Richard’s unique paintings is on display in the exhibition.

This year’s exhibition promises to be one of our best. Our open submission received a great response and we thank all the artists from around the UK and around the world, who submitted their work. They range from established watercolourists to many young and emerging artists whose talent is a constant inspiration to our Selection Committee.

This continuing high standard of work has enabled us to follow the tradition of inclusivity that the RI was founded on, and so again this year our exhibition will enjoy a 50/50 split of Members’ and non-members’ work hanging together.

We thank all of our sponsors who for another year have generously provided our awards and prizes with a total value of over £7,000.

And we thank the staff at the Mall Galleries, whose help and assistance enable us to put on this inspiring exhibition.

Last but not least, my thanks goes to our Council Members, for their dedication and enthusiasm throughout the year, and to our past President Rosa, for all the work that she has done for the RI over the last six years.

We hope that you enjoy our 211th exhibition.

Also on behalf of RI Council and Members, and definitely myself, I wish to thank Chris Orr MBE RA , narrative artist and printmaker, for agreeing to open our 211th RI Exhibition.

Chris’ prolific body of work has been a pleasure to many of us for many years and we are delighted to have one of Chris’ watercolours, in our exhibition.

Chris Myers President Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours