This paper concerns the relationship between nineteenth century art exhibitions and the social construction of the artist. Attention is focused on the institutional conditions which endorsed the fine artist in the role of an individuated creator within the context of the changing social relations of artistic production. In this way art exhibitions are considered as sites of cultural production and it is argued that matters of their organization relate fundamentally to both questions of power and the production of the artist's pictorial authority. An assessment of the problems that faced the powerful Royal Academy of Arts and its Exhibition points to the way in which such questions took on political and class hues in the context of a developing capitalist society. It is suggested that what is at stake here is the way in which the institution of the art exhibition relates to the emergence of a dominant tradition of creativity – symbolically restating the class situation of the bourgeoisie.
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