New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art


Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) was probably the greatest landscape painter in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century. The first retrospective of his work in the US in over 40 years, this exhibition brings together some 140 paintings and watercolors, over half of them bequeathed by Tate Britain. The subjects juxtapose scenes of Venice with those of the sea, the countryside and historical events such as the Battle of Trafalgar.

The son of a barber and a wigmaker, Turner emulated the work of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain. After becoming known for his watercolors that he began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London in 1790, he aspired to elevate landscape to the same status as history painting. Turner was also avant-garde. His later, abstract paintings were subsumed by light and color and, while not appreciated during his turbulent career, their style appealed to modernist critics when his work was rediscovered. Significantly, Turner stipulated in his will that his paintings hang beside those of Lorrain in London's National Gallery. His work was also the inspiration behind the creation of the Turner Prize for contemporary art, given by the Tate, in the UK.

July 1 through September 21, 2008
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10028
T.+ 1 212-570-3828