William Hodges 1744-1797 : the art of exploration

Edited by Geoff Quilley and John Bonehill. New Haven ; London : Yale University Press for the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 2004. Quarto, illustrated wrappers, pp. viii, 212, illustrated. Foreword by Sir David Attenborough. Catalogue to the exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 5 July-21 November 2004 and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 27 January-24 April 2005.

‘William Hodges is well known as the artist who accompanied Cook’s second voyage to the South Pacific as official landscape painter. This book–a major reappraisal of his career and reputation–presents him as one of the most intriguing and controversial painters of his age. Foremost scholars consider Hodges’s work in terms of the rise of ethnology, the investigation of Indian history, the encounter with peoples “without history,” and the development of empirical science and rationalism. Previous accounts of Hodges have often treated him secondarily to Cook and the history of geographical exploration. This volume redresses this situation in the light of recent developments in the history of eighteenth-century British art, which seek to understand art and aesthetics within a broader framework of social and imperial history.’ – the publisher