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J. M. W. Turner is one of the greatest artists the world has ever known. Both admired and ridiculed during his lifetime, his output was prolific and astonishingly varied. The Tate owns the world's largest collection of his work. Its Clore Gallery houses the Turner Bequest - the paintings, watercolours, drawings and sketchbooks acquired from the artist's estate in 1856. These have since been amplified by other collections, notably of prints by and after Turner.
Focusing on 125 works, this book provides a fresh and lively survey of all aspects of the Tate Turner collections, introducing not only familiar masterpieces but many other works - such as sheets from sketchbooks or prints - that are less often seen. These highlight the extraordinary breadth of achievement of this great Romantic painter, from the early topographical drawings and classical oils to the later spectacular watercolours: landscape; natural subjects; ancient and modern history; marine subjects; literary illustration; images of modern life. All these themes are illuminated in this lavishly illustrated book
In an extended introductory essay David Blayney Brown discusses Turner's life and work, revealing the contrasts and paradoxes that abound in both: as a painter he looked both backwards and forwards, bridging the gap between the eighteenth century and modernism, compelled constantly to re-examine and reinvent his own art.
