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Joseph Mallord William Turner

1775–1851

Self-Portrait c.1799
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In Tate Britain

JMW Turner

In Tate Britain

Historic and Modern British Art

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Rooms

32,410 artworks by Joseph Mallord William Turner
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  • Artist biography
  • Wikipedia entry

Artist biography

Wikipedia entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. His artistic style developed over his lifetime, moving away from Romanticism — bypassing the following rising style of Realism — and, instead, with his later works being a significant precursor of and presaging the later Impressionist and Abstract Art movements that arose in the decades after his death. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He was championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivaling history painting.

Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower-middle-class family and retained his lower-class accent, while assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame. A child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which he often only begrudgingly accepted owing to his troubled and contrary nature. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828. He travelled around Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.

Intensely private, eccentric, and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Evelina (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by the widow Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father in 1829; when his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. In 1841, Turner rowed a boat into the Thames so he could not be counted as present at any property in that year's census. He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London.

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Picturesque Romanticism Sublime 1 more art term …

Artworks

Left Right
  • Two Women with a Boy and a Small Child

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1796
    View by appointment
  • The Death of Actaeon, with a Distant View of Montjovet, Val d’Aosta

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    c.1837
  • A Mountain Stream, Perhaps Bolton Glen

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    c.1810–5
  • Frontispiece

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1812
    View by appointment
  • Frontispiece, engraved by J.C. Easling

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1812
    View by appointment
  • Bridge and Cows

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1807
    View by appointment
  • Bridge and Cows, engraved by Charles Turner

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1807
    View by appointment
  • Woman and Tambourine

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1807
    View by appointment
See all 39404

Artist as subject

Left Right
  • Sheet of Studies: An Old Bearded Man Seen in Profile with a Boy Reaching Past him, Holding a Hat

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    c.1796–7
    View by appointment
  • A Party of Men Picnicking: ?Turner and his Travelling Companions

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1802
    View by appointment
  • Turner’s Address: 47 Queen Anne Street

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1831
    View by appointment
  • Self-Portrait

    Joseph Mallord William Turner
    c.1799
    On display at Tate Britain part of JMW Turner
  • Portrait of J.M.W. Turner, R.A.

    John Thomas Smith
    date not known
  • Portrait Study of J.M.W. Turner’s Father, with a Sketch of Turner’s Eyes, Made during a Lecture

    John Linnell
    1812
    View by appointment
  • Louvre (‘J.M.W. Turner’ ‘Edward Rampton’)

    Braco Dimitrijević
    1975–9
    On display at Tate Britain part of Tate Archive is 50
  • Portrait of J.M.W. Turner

    Charles Turner
    1852
    View by appointment
  • Samuel Rogers at his Breakfast Table, engraved by Charles Mottram

    After John Doyle, engraver Charles Mottram
    c.1823
  • Portrait of J.M.W. Turner (‘The Fallacy of Hope’), engraved by J. Hogarth

    Charles Hullmandel, after Count Alfred D’Orsay
    published 1851
    View by appointment
  • Portrait of Turner, engraved by W. Holl

    After Joseph Mallord William Turner
    published 1859–61
    View by appointment
  • Statue of Turner (Turner Gallery frontispiece without lettering)

    After Joseph Mallord William Turner
    published 1859–61
  • Statue of Turner (Turner Gallery frontispiece without lettering)

    After Joseph Mallord William Turner
    1859–61

Film and audio

  • TateShots

    Olafur Eliasson on J.M.W Turner

  • Podcast

    Walks of Art: Dolly Alderton on Turner, Monet and the Thames

  • Playlist

    MixTate: Prayer on J.M.W. Turner

  • How To

    How to Paint Like Turner

Features

  • Look Closer

    J.M.W. Turner, the Original Artist-Curator

  • Tate Etc

    Details, Details: J.M.W. Turner’s Snow Storm 1842

    Katharine Hayhoe

  • Tate Etc

    Whispers in Paint

    Jennifer Higgie

  • Tate Etc

    A Sketch at Every Turn

    James Finch

  • Tate Etc

    ‘This man Turner, he learnt a lot from me’

    Christopher Rothko, Kate Rothko Prizel and Simon Grant

Related art terms

Picturesque Romanticism Sublime Dutch Golden Age painting

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