Thirty-five artists were selected from over 100 alumni from the School, all of whom had received scholarships and fellowships awarded by public bodies and private foundations between October 1995 and June 2005. Amongst them are several who are internationally recognised including Edward Allington, Jordan Baseman, Richard Billingham, Adam Chodzko, Jaki Irvine, Mark Wallinger and Alison Wilding. Most of the artists have significantly established their reputations in the UK and abroad and there is also a group of promising young artists whose work will be included.

‘Why Rome?’ is the question all candidates for the Rome scholarships are asked during their interviews. Almost always the candidates have a precise answer to this question be it Arte Povera, the ‘dolce vita’, Cinecittà or the wealth of artistic heritage in the city’s museums, churches and monuments. The saying ‘all roads lead to Rome’ has a particular pertinence in the artistic world as, sooner or later, anyone and everyone working in the creative fields will pass through Rome, bringing something to it, and taking something from it.

All the works to be exhibited were either realised during the artists’ stay in Rome or as a direct consequence of it and they have given shape to their Roman and Italian experience in a wide variety of media: paintings, drawings, sculptural and installation pieces, and photographs as well as book, video and film works.

A quintessentially Roman image is Sargant Fellow John Riddy’s black and white photographic diptych of the Colosseum, 1999, whilst two Henry Moore Sculpture Fellows, Smith/Stewart, collaborated on a 3-minute colour film transferred to video entitled Lovers, Rome, 2002. Marion Coutts, Rome Scholar in the Fine Arts, has produced a 12-minute colour film Epic, 2000 in which four human bearers process through the streets of Rome carrying a life-size model of a horse. Tim Stoner, Wingate Rome Scholar in the Fine Arts, will be represented by a group of small watercolours on paper including Ballroom 2001.

In their widely differing ways, all these works bear witness to the unfathomable allure and wealth of Rome, a city with over 2,500 years of evolution, transformation, continuous decay and rebirth, a city with a resounding past and a vibrant present, where artists have long been inspired, and can still find something entirely new, start a fresh phase in their career and even their life.

Responding to Rome will illustrate how the traditional Grand Tour has evolved into a lively, contemporary experience and how diversity in the practice of and approach to visual art is encouraged and facilitated in the multi-disciplinary environment of the British School at Rome. The BSR’s history dates from 1901, when it was founded as a ‘school’ for research in archaeology and Italian studies. Its splendid building near the Borghese Gardens was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and completed in 1938.

The exhibition is curated by Jacopo Benci, a Rome-based visual artist who has worked at the British School since 1992 and has been its Assistant Director for Fine Arts for the last seven years. The exhibition catalogue will include a general introduction, images of all the works on view together with accompanying texts by the artists themselves and summary biographies.