Brentwood|Local Event
The Amazing Portrait and Story of Mai
Sunday, Sep 20, 2026
4pm
Getty Center & Online
Harold M. Williams Auditorium
Free
Tickets are free, but required for event entrance. Your event ticket will also serve as your Center entrance reservation. Please note, there is a fee for parking.
To watch online, register via Zoom.
Once you register, you'll receive an email detailing how to join online.
Coinciding with the US debut of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Mai, this conversation explores Reynolds’s painting and its extraordinary subject, Mai, the first Polynesian to visit England. Join author and historian Hampton Sides and Getty's associate director of collections Richard Rand to hear about Reynold’s making of the full-length portrait, Mai’s time in England from 1774-76, and his return voyage to Tahiti on Captain James Cook's final voyage.
For in-person attendees, a book signing with Hampton Sides follows this talk. His celebrated book, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook (2024), will be available for purchase both before and after the program.