Royal Museums Greenwich

The extraordinary quality of the works gathered together for Turner & the Sea confirms his status as the pre-eminent painter of water and demonstrates his unique ability to represent the elemental power of the sea. The exhibition features items on loan from some of the world’s most prestigious artistic institutions including: National Gallery, Tate, Yale Center for British Art, British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Royal Collection, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon and National Gallery of Art, Washington.

From his transformative Royal Academy paintings of the late 1790s and early 1800s to the unfinished, experimental seascapes he produced towards the end of his life, more than half of Turner’s artistic output depicted maritime subjects. It should come as no surprise that a man who spent much of his life along the coastlines of Britain and Europe, who spent days fishing the river Thames, and who reportedly had himself lashed to the mast of a ship to better paint a storm at sea, captured this subject so often and with such evocative mastery. Nonetheless, the sheer volume of material Turner created in his quest to depict the sea is remarkable

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Five hundred years ago, a fraternity of London mariners was given a charter by Henry VIII and became the Corporation of Trinity House - with instructions to improve the safety of navigation on the Thames.

Since then, Trinity House has looked after pilotage, buoys, beacons and lightships and has become the Lighthouse Authority for England, Wales and the Channel Islands. The work of Trinity House over the last 500 years has prevented countless shipwrecks and immense loss of life, and its employees have shown great skill, bravery and endurance.

While Trinity House’s aims have remained constant its methods of achieving them have changed dramatically as new technology is adopted and developed.

This small gallery displays objects and stories from throughout the organisation’s history as well as looking to the future as Trinity House continues to work ‘for the benefit and safety of all mariners’.

Website

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The race to determine longitude at sea gripped Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, becoming a focus for serious debate, popular ridicule and single-minded scientific endeavour. Valuable rewards were on offer for whoever could crack the puzzle and Ships, Clocks & Stars presents the ingenious methods and instruments designed to scoop the Board of Longitude’s prize and transform seafaring navigation forever.

The exhibition takes visitors from the coffee houses of London to the tropical climes of Cook’s Pacific voyages, exploring the industry, imagination, relationships and rivalries that shaped one of the largest scientific and technical accomplishments in history; and showing that this world-changing tale does not begin and end with Harrison’s famous timekeepers.

Website

http://www.​rmg.​co.​uk

As part of the National Maritime Museum’s commemoration of World War One this new gallery explores the naval and maritime dimensions of that conflict.

The horrors of the Western Front have long dominated our understanding of those years, and yet the war at sea was fought on an epic scale and with terrible human loss.

Forgotten Fighters foregrounds the personal stories of those who participated through a wide range of objects including weaponry, photographs, medals and ship models; in a gallery which takes visitors from the heroism of merchant mariners to the shattering realities of naval battle, and from the Falkland Islands and the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and the North Sea.

Website

http://www.​rmg.​co.​uk

The Royal Observatory’s hugely popular Astronomy Photographer of the Year returns in 2014 to celebrate the very best in astrophotography from around the world.

The competition opens for entries in January 2014, with photographers invited to submit work to categories including ‘Earth and Space’, ‘Deep Space’ ‘Our Solar System’ and ‘Young Astronomy Photographer’. The winning images are selected by an expert judging panel which includes the Observatory’s Public Astronomer Dr. Marek Kukula.

After the awards are announced in September 2014 the winning photographs will be displayed in a special exhibition at the Royal Observatory.

The 2013 contest received a record number of entries, with over 1,200 outstanding pictures submitted from 49 countries around the globe. More details and previous winning images can be found at www.rmg.co.uk/astrophoto

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