How did Britain’s Empire influence the creation and collection of art over the past 400 years? And how did artists themselves reinforce, resist and reflect the Empire in their work? This autumn Tate Britain will present a unique exhibition about Imperial visual culture that will show art from across the British Isles, North America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, Asia and Africa.

‘Artist and Empire’ will examine the people who helped to create, promote or confront the British Empire in their work, bringing together around 200 extraordinary paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures and artefacts. The exhibition will reveal how the meanings of these objects have changed through history, and will ask what they mean to us today.

The encounters between cultures will be explored, from the East India Company’s patronage of Mughal painting during a period of cultural assimilation, through to the long disregard of Aboriginal art which went hand-in-hand with the denigration of indigenous Australian cultures.

Starting in the 16th century, Artist and Empire will show how artists mapped the world and its resources. From Lambert and Scott’s 1731 painting of Bombay harbour to John Montresor’s 1766 Plan of the City of New York, these works depicted and claimed territories around the globe. Carefully staged paintings of international events also manipulated the sympathies of audiences in Britain, dramatising conquests, treaties and ‘last stands’. The exhibition will also bring together grand portraits of key political figures by Augustus John and Joshua Reynolds and will examine how they were presented in ‘exotic’ or hybrid costume, showing how images reflected bonds of union but also established differences between cultural groups. Artist and Empire runs at Tate Britain from 25 November until 10 April.