Academician, j.g.

When Paul Riley, 15. first came upon the scene during one of his evening rambles about the London suburb of Richmond, the youngster was entranced. There was a dark lane leading through weathered buildings to the Thames. Paul sketched it a few times, finally painted it when the streets were wet and the sky leaden. At Easter, when his father, an art teacher, was packing up some of his own canvases for the annual Summer Show at the Royal Academy of Art in London, he suggested that Paul send in something too, and Paul chose Water Lane, Richmond. "Have a bash." his father said. "You've got to get used to disappointments."

A quiet boy who favors jeans and turtleneck sweaters, Paul has been studying art with his father for the last four years, but the old man's suggestion at first seemed absolutely balmy. Though the lackluster Summer Show gets an annual trouncing from London's critics, it does represent the Academy's pick of some 10,000 entries sent in by R.A.s and other painters from all over Britain. But last week, when the show opened with appropriate pomp, it was Paul and not his father who was there as an honored guest.

In the 190 years since the first Summer Show in Sir Joshua Reynolds' day, only two younger artists had ever been shown at the Academy. One was Joan Floyd of Bristol, who had a painting hung in 1928 when she was 14, but gave up her career for marriage. The other was Master (later Sir) Edwin Landseer, whose Portrait of a Mule and Portrait of a Pointer Bitch and Puppy created a sensation in 1915 when Landseer was only 13.

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