Pennsylvania-born artist Benjamin West began his career stateside, but it was across the Atlantic, in England, where he found fame, as a court painter to George III
West and Copley in Houston
Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), 1778. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ferdinand Lammot Belin Fund. An adventurous exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston should alter our views on the influence of early American painting and painters. American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World explores the way in which two colonial painters …