Mosman Art Gallery is proud to present this unique exhibition, Ship to Shore: The 11th National Australian Society of Marine Artists exhibition.

Formed in 1996, the society now has 134 members including the leading practitioners of marine art from around Australia. Many of these members have gained national and international recognition for their work.

Marine art is a time honoured genre that in western cultures has evolved from the Dutch painters of the 16th and 17th centuries who portrayed fishermen and traders of the North Sea. This, along with the discovery of the New World and the advances in ship building and navigation produced great painters on both sides of the Atlantic including John Turner and Winslow Homer, who reveled in maritime subjects.

The first marine artists in Australia were the Aboriginal people who witnessed and recorded the activities of Indonesian and Malay fishermen in our North West, followed by the arrival of the first European ships. In the First Fleet there were artists who recorded the growth of the colony and the other colonies that followed. As these colonies all were settled around a bay or river, many of their paintings include maritime subjects.

Today marine art incorporates any theme or subject that is related to the sea, river or estuary, including people and activities both past and present which are linked with the sea and its environs. Ship to Shore: The 11th National Australian Society of Marine Artists exhibition showcases a range of marine imagery including seascapes, ships, ports, harbours, models, maritime history and marine flora and fauna, through paintings, prints, sculptures, models and scrimshaw.

The Mosman Art Gallery Guides will present a free exhibition tour at 11am, Saturday 3rd December.

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