The Liverpool Academy of Arts was founded in April 1810 as a regional equivalent of the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, London. Two local art collectors, Henry Blundell

Henry Blundell (art collector)

Henry Blundell was an English art collector.-Life:Blundell was born at Ince Blundell, Lancashire. A Catholic, like his friend and fellow collector Charles Townley he was thus barred from the British university system and was educated at the college of the English Jesuits at St Omer and...

 and William Roscoe

William Roscoe

William Roscoe , was an English historian and miscellaneous writer.-Life:He was born in Liverpool, where his father, a market gardener, kept a public house called the Bowling Green at Mount Pleasant. Roscoe left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach...

 were its first Patron and Secretary, the Prince Regent

Prince Regent

A prince regent is a prince who rules a monarchy as regent instead of a monarch, e.g., due to the Sovereign's incapacity or absence ....

 gave his patronage for the next three years, and it was actively promoted by presidents of the Royal Academy.

Its membership included local artists such as the landscapists John Rathbone, Richard Ansdell

Richard Ansdell

Richard Ansdell was an English oil painter of animals and genre scenes. He was also an engraver.-Life:Ansdell was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, the son of Thomas Griffiths Ansdell, a freeman who worked at the port, and Anne Jackson. His father died young and Richard was educated at the Bluecoat...

, Thomas Chubbard, Alfred William Hunt

Alfred William Hunt

Alfred William Hunt, , was an English painter. He was son of Andrew Hunt, a landscape painter.-Biography:...

 and Charles Barber, and the sculptor John Gibson

John Gibson (sculptor)

John Gibson, was a Welsh sculptor.-Early life:He was born near Conwy, Wales, his father being a market gardener. To his mother, whom he described as ruling his father and all the family, he owed the energy and determination which carried him over every obstacle.When he was nine years old the...

.

Leading artists of the day competed for its prize of £50 for non-local contributors to its annual exhibition, including J. M. W. Turner

J. M. W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...

, Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli was a British painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, of Swiss origin.-Biography:...

, John Martin

John Martin (painter)

John Martin was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator.-Biography:Martin was born in July 1789, in a one-room family cottage, at Haydon Bridge, near Hexham in Northumberland, the 4th son of Fenwick Martin, a one time fencing master...

 and Joseph Wright of Derby

Joseph Wright of Derby

Joseph Wright , styled Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter. He has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution"....

.

In the late 1850s, however, it split due to major disagreements following annual prizes being awarded to the then controversial Pre-Raphaelite

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...

 painters, particularly to William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...

 in 1852 for Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus and to Millais

John Everett Millais

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

in 1857 for The Blind Girl.

The Academy remained nominally in existence, continuing to hold annual exhibitions, but never regaining its national importance.