The Power of Drawing Marking 25 Years of the Royal Drawing School

From Tracey Emin to Tim Burton, Thomas Heatherwick to Es Devlin, the school's 25th anniversary exhibition showcases drawings from renowned artists and alumni across diverse creative fields, celebrating the power of drawing in their practice.
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Open to view

1 July – 26 July 2025
Monday to Friday 9am–6pm, Saturdays 10am–4pm

Location

Shoreditch studios

Price

Free

"Drawing is an alchemic language. My emotions force the drawing out of my hand - this explains why so many of my drawings are repeated images. It's not because I draw the same thing, but the same moment wants to be redrawn. And that's the beautiful thing about drawing: it's intimate, like handwriting, and the dialogue is between the paper and me." 

Tracey Emin

Artist

Drawing by Tracey Emin - Because you left - I held on

Tracey Emin, Because you Left - I Held on, 2024. Acrylic on lithographic background, Somerset Velvet Warm White Paper400gsm, 65 x 83.8cm. Courtesy of the artist

Norman Foster_Interior of Chapel of Ronchamp
Norman Foster Interior of Chapel of Ronchamp [Sketches, France], 1959. Colour wash, ink and pencil on wove paper affixed to black wove paper, 20.9 x 25.7cm. Courtesy of the Norman FosterFoundation

This free exhibition, marking the 25th anniversary of the Royal Drawing School, highlights the central role of drawing across creative disciplines - including fine art, performance, film, architecture, illustration, and design.

The exhibition will showcase drawings and quotes by renowned artists and creative figures including Quentin Blake, Frank Bowling, Tim Burton, Tacita Dean, Es Devlin, Tracey Emin, Denzil Forrester, Norman Foster, Catherine Goodman, Antony Gormley, Thomas Heatherwick, David Hockney, Eileen Hogan, Jony Ive, Chantal Joffe, Rachel Jones, Bharti Kher, Christopher Le Brun, Charlie Mackesy, Ishbel Myerscough, Humphrey Ocean, Alice Oswald, Cornelia Parker, and Rufus Wainwright.

His Majesty the King, Founding Patron of the Royal Drawing School, will also contribute an original drawing, to this special celebratory exhibition, as will the School’s alumni from the past 25 years.

Alumni contributors include: Jamiu Agboke, Frith Olwyn Angel, Sara Anstis, Alicja Biała, Daniel Blumberg, William Brickel, Somaya Critchlow, Clara Drummond, Charlotte Edey, Ned Elliott, Douglas Farthing, Laura Footes, Jake Garfield, Jake Grewal, Richard Ayodeji Ikhide, Olivia Kemp, Christina Kimeze, Oliver Macdonald Oulds, Jessie Makinson, Kathryn Maple, Francesca Mollett, Louis Pohl Koseda, Fraser Scarfe, Lindsay Sekulowicz, Alice Shirley.

Curatorial introduction

The Power of Drawing explores the ways in which drawing fuels different creative practices. The works and reflections in this exhibition bring together leading contemporary artists and alumni of the Royal Drawing School working across a range of disciplines, from painting and sculpture to music, poetry, film, architecture and illustration. Through these works, we witness drawing as an end in itself, but also as a route to other creative practices – in designs for structures and buildings, as a silent discipline alongside musical composition, or the visual mapping of a poem as it unfolds.

Drawing holds a multiplicity of meanings for the artists gathered here: it can be a way of thinking, seeing and understanding. It is a ‘magic’ like breathing, a ‘cure’, a ‘universal language’, a ‘dialogue’ between a sheet of paper and the self. Together, these drawings and quotes underline the centrality of drawing in creative life and the flexibility and communicative power of mark-making.

This exhibition marks the 25th anniversary of the Royal Drawing School. The School was founded as a place where observational drawing could thrive, taught as a language that underpins creative thinking. The Power of Drawing celebrates the discipline, the freedom, and the community the School has nurtured – and the remarkable journeys that drawing continues to make possible.

Special events

The anniversary programme will also include a series of free livestreamed talks and an online drawing masterclass, inviting the public to engage with drawing as a powerful and accessible form of expression.

Digital Studio: The Power of Drawing

  • Tuesday 1 July 2025, 6.30–8.30pm
  • Free, booking required. Book here

Join us for a special online life drawing session streamed live from The Power of Drawing, the School’s landmark 25th anniversary exhibition. Guided by two experienced tutors and working from a live model, participants will take inspiration from works by 25 leading artists and creatives including David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Tim Burton and Rachel Jones, alongside drawings by 25 alumni and our Founding Royal Patron, His Majesty King Charles III.

Drawing Dialogues

A special series of free, live-streamed conversations will take place from October 2025. Join some of the world’s most visionary artists, designers, writers and thinkers as they reflect on the role of drawing in their work, from painting, performance and design to storytelling, architecture and science.
Free, booking required

The Power of Drawing

Marking 25 years of the Royal Drawing School

Book your free ticket

Open to View

  • 1–26 July 2025
  • Monday to Friday 9am - 6pm, Saturdays 10am - 4pm
  • Free admission, booking required

The Royal Drawing School's 25th anniversary events are generously supported by Ralph Lauren, a valued partner of the School for over six years, helping to make high-quality drawing tuition accessible to all.

I’ve always been drawn to drawing. In my extreme youth it was a tool for discovery and experimentation, then when music took over I put the pencil aside. But during Covid I returned to the silent discipline and instantly realized that in this day and age, a day and age consumed by sensual excesses never before experienced by humanity, drawing has now become for me a means to maintain sanity, a necessary exercise to ward off the dark powers of the vampiric forces of modernity. Basically a cure.

Rufus Wainwright

Singer and Songwriter

Rufus Wainwright, etching of a woman

Rufus Wainwright, Kate number one, 2023. Ink, pencil, whiteout/liquid on paper, 44.5 x 35.5cm. Photo: Sammy’s Camera. Courtesy of the artist