The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1784 was an art exhibition held at Somerset House in London between 26 April and 3 June 1784. It was the sixteenth annual Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts.
The exhibition was marked by disputes and the absence of many of the leading painters of the era. George Stubbs and Joseph Wright of Derby had both been denied membership of the Academy. The latter responded by hosting his own successful private show. Most significantly, when the hanging committee refused to hang his royal portrait The Three Eldest Princesses to his satisfaction, Thomas Gainsborough withdrew it and all the other works he had planned to exhibit that year. This marked the second and final time he had withdrawn from the Academy and he submitted no further works for the remainder of his career.
