Includes preface, guide to entries, biographical sources, abbreviations, exhibitions & members, members of Council 1880 - 1979, list of RCA exhibitions.

The main portion of the book is an alphabetical list of all artists who exhibited in the RCA exhibitions. Each listing includes (where known) birth and death dates & locations; a summary of where the artist lived as noted in each catalogue; a list of major references to the artist; and a complete listing of every artwork that they exhibited with the RCA.

This book would have required an immense amount of work, especially in pre-computer days. Listing 25,563 artworks by more than 3,000 artists from over 100 exhibitions would have probably required the use of thousands of index cards, handwritten or typed, to be filled in and sorted prior to typing the manuscript. As well, the internet was not available for fact-checking or looking up biographical information.

As McMann notes in her preface: " ... There are discrepancies in the Academy's records, and a number of past Members' files have been discarded. Variations appear in biographical forms returned by artists to the Academy and to libraries. Newspaper obituaries disagree. Reference books supply a choice of dates and places of birth and death. The catalogues spell artists' names in several ways. ... (continues)."

Only artists with BC references are included in the list below.
Artists noted " * " are new to the BC Artist index.