At the other exhibition in the Strand, to which sixty-five artists
contributed, the old system prevailed. Visitors were at liberty to
purchase a catalogue or not, as they chose; but a check was placed upon
the indiscriminate admission of all classes by requiring from visitors
the production of tickets which had been distributed gratuitously by the
exhibitors, and were readily obtainable. After defraying all expenses
the exhibition produced upwards of L150, which sum was appropriated in
benefactions--to the Middlesex Hospital L50, to the British Lying-in
Hospital L50, to the Asylum for Female Orphans L50, the small balance
remaining after these donations being distributed among distressed
artists. In the following year the Strand exhibitors took the first
practical measures for founding a provident society for the benefit of
British artists by forming themselves into an organized body, with a
constitution and rules for their proper government, and assuming the
title of 'The Free Society of Artists, Associated for the Relief of the
Distressed and Decayed Brethren, their Widows and Children.' The society
was to be maintained by the sale of the catalogues of an annual
exhibition, or by charging for admission to such exhibition, as a
committee of management to be chosen every year should determine; such
committee having also power to reject the works sent in that they might
deem unworthy of exhibition, and to hang or dispose of accepted works
'without respect to persons.' Every artist who contributed works to the
exhibition for five years in succession, intermission by reason of
illness or absence from the country not being a disqualification, was to
be a perpetual member of the society and entitled to share in its
benefits and privileges. In 1763 the institution took legal shape, and
was 'enrolled of record in His Majesty's Court of King's Bench,' fifty
members signing the roll.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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