Royal Academy of Arts to that drawn up by Cheere in 1755. It was Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect and head of the British government's architects' department, the Office of Works, who used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support for the Academy in 1768. The painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president, and Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788. The instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of
Royal Academy of Art, The Hague Royal Academy of Art, The Hague The Royal Academy of Art (, KABK) is an leading and highly renowned art academy in The Hague. Succeeding the "Haagsche Teeken-Academie" (part of the Confrerie Pictura), the academy was founded on 29 September 1682, making it the oldest in the Netherlands and one of the oldest in the world. It has been training ground for a number of significant artists of the Hague School and it was part of the art movement of Dutch Impressionism and was also in the immediate vicinity of the II. Golden Age of Dutch painting. However, in the