To support the 2013 exhibition American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World,which examines modern history painting and its American innovators. This exhibition presents new research on Benjamin West’s and John Singleton Copley’s iconic paintings and provides context for their work, exploring each Colonial painter’s progress as an academic artist first at the margins of the British Empire and then in the center of the English-speaking art world. A catalogue and a 2013 symposium in London are planned for the exhibition.