Printing the Pacific: 1696–1804

Using visual records from the period, this exhibition explores the way in which prints functioned as a means of generating and disseminating knowledge about the Pacific during the 18th century. Accounts of the European voyages of exploration, ranging from scientific botanical illustration through cartography and portraiture, mediated the first-hand experience of explorers for metropolitan audiences. An important record of the Enlightenment's intellectual culture, this exhibition also points to the visual tropes and academic traditions which informed ways of seeing at that time.

Printing the Pacific includes the a recent reproduction of part of the Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique wallpaper, which is on loan from the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira.

Part of the New Zealand Art: Insights and Connections series of exhibitions drawn from our collection