The Royal Drawing School presents an exhibition of drawings by students studying on the School’s postgraduate programme, The Drawing Year. Running 2 December 2015 – 18 January 2016, the ex-hibition will display 300 drawings by 28 students, all of which are for sale.

The exhibition offers a range of work, rich in observation, imagination and storytelling. The graduat-ing artists come from a range of backgrounds and artistic disciplines including painting, printmaking, sculpture, illustration and animation. Drawing is a crucial route to innovation across the creative dis-ciplines and beyond, from fashion, fine art and animation to filmmaking, product design and engineer-ing. Drawing is a primary language natural to all human beings, and fundamental to all aspects of learning and thinking from childhood onwards. The highly subscribed postgraduate course offers all 28 students a full scholarship to spend a year on an intensive MA-level course, taught by a faculty of over 55 practising artists, providing high-quality drawing teaching to young contemporary artists.

Featured artist Christabel Forbes was so determined to get on the course, she hitchhiked from Fal-mouth where she was a studying on the Fine Art BA course, to London to attend the open day when the Dawlish Railway had collapsed into the sea in February 2014. Artists also include James Albon, whose illustrations have appeared in The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal, Caitlin Stone, a vid-eo and installation artist and a previous graduate of Goldmsiths BA Fine Art, who produces hyper sensitive and detailed drawings. Not all graduates have come from a fine art background, Douglas Farthing previously served in the British Army Parachute Regiment with no formal art training before The Drawing Year – the acute perception of the tension and beauty in life acquired as a soldier now serve him well as an artist.

HRH The Prince of Wales founded the Royal Drawing School (previously The Prince’s Drawing School) along with artist Catherine Goodman in 2000. The School has a long heritage of esteemed artists and creatives supporting its mission and the work of the students. David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, David Shrigley, Sir Peter Blake, Cornelia Parker and Sir Quentin Blake are among those who have shown their support to the School as visiting artists and lecturers, while Chris-topher Le Brun President of the Royal Academy and Andrea Rose OBE CMG, former Director of Visual Arts at the British Council for over 20 years, both sit on the board of Trustees.

With the resurgence of public interest in drawing, the Royal Drawing School has also been invited to curate a large exhibition of drawings at Christie’s New York, to run alongside Christie’s Master Draw-ings Week. The exhibition will span three rooms and include drawings from alumni and faculty of the Royal Drawing School including Christopher Le Brun PRA, Humphrey Ocean RA, Catherine Good-man, David Dawson, Ishbel Myerscough, Sarah Pickstone and Stuart Pearson Wright, from the end of January through to 7 February 2016.

Now in its fifteenth year, the Royal Drawing School was set up with the aim of raising the standard and profile of observational drawing through teaching and practise. The School has grown from teaching 40 students in a small attic in East London, to teaching drawing to over 1000 students each week in five studio campuses across London. Last year the School was granted the Royal title with HM the Queen’s consent. The issuing of the Royal name recognises the School’s academic and artis-tic excellence and its international importance as a specialist resource for people of all ages, back-grounds and abilities who wish to develop their observational drawing.