Spreading Canvas: Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting

September 15 - December 4, 2016 - This is the first major exhibition to survey the tradition of marine painting that was inextricably linked to Britain’s rise to prominence as a maritime and imperial power, and to position the genre at the heart of the burgeoning British art world of the eighteenth century.  This exhibition will reconstruct the full array of representational modes pictorial, planimetric, narrative, and plastic that were deployed throughout the century to represent the maritime exploits of the nation.