NMM: Emma Hamilton

Emma Hamilton Seduction and Celebrity at the National Maritime Museum

Working with the talented Robin Clark and graphic designer Lai Couto. Emma Hamilton, Seduction and Celebrity was an exhibition staged at the National Maritime Museum, London. The exhibition focused on the story of Emma Hart and how she rose from a simple milk maid to political heiress, wife of Lord Nelson and finally pushed into poverty and rejected by the public after his death. The exhibition focuses on female power and beauty at a time when women’s rights were in question.

After winning a creative pitch to design the exhibition, we quickly began to study the acquisitions and explore the narrative to see how best to develop this key exhibition. With over 150 objects, including several key works by George Romney of Lady Hamilton’s muse and the Maritime Museums own collection. The exhibition had to be carefully detailed and laid out to ensure all the objects fit into the space and that the museum’s curators and stakeholders were content with the complex and sensitive narrative.