Turner exhibition showcases artist’s love of sea


Released on: July 09, 2013, 2:58 pm
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Industry: Travel

British artist JMW Turner’s lifetime fascination with boats and the see will be explored in a stunning new exhibition at National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

-- /EPR NETWORK/ -- The National Maritime Museums has announced its major exhibition for winter 2013 will be Turner & the Sea, the first full-scale examination of British artist JMW Turner's lifelong fascination with the sea. Dramatic, contemplative, violent, beautiful, dangerous and sublime the sea was the perfect subject to showcase Turner's singular talents, and the 120 pieces on display include some of the most celebrated paintings of the artist's long career. Fittingly, the exhibition takes place at the National Maritime Museum, which is by the Thames in Greenwich. Visitors looking for cheap London hotels should visit LondonTown.com, where they will find superb offers on hotels in all parts of the city.

The extraordinary quality of the works gathered together for  Turner & the Sea which opens on 22 November confirms his status as the pre-eminent painter of water and demonstrates his unique ability to represent the elemental power of the sea. The exhibition features items on loan from some of the world's most prestigious artistic institutions including the National Gallery, Tate, YaleCenter for British Art, British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Royal Collection, CalousteGulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon and National Gallery of Art, Washington.

From his Royal Academy paintings of the late 1790s to the unfinished, experimental seascapes he produced towards the end of his life, more than half of Turner's artistic output depicted maritime subjects.  It should come as no surprise that a man who spent much of his life along the coastlines of Britain and Europe, who spent days fishing the river Thames, and who reportedly had himself lashed to the mast of a ship to better paint a storm at sea, captured this subject so often and with such evocative mastery. Nonetheless, the sheer volume of material Turner created in his quest to depict the sea is remarkable.

The Fighting Temeraire' (1839), Snow Storm Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842), Staffa, Fingal's Cave (1832), Now for the Painter'  (1827),  Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight  (1835), Whalers  (c.1845) and  Calais Pier (1803) will all be shown, alongside works by other major British and European artists, including Willem van de Velde, Claude-Joseph Vernet, Thomas Gainsborough, Nicholas Pocock, John Constable and Richard ParkesBonington. Turner & the Sea  re-evaluates the compelling appeal of the sea for Turner and his contemporaries, and gives visitors the opportunity to see the ways in which he responded to the art of the past while challenging his audiences with a new and exciting maritime vision. 

Further highlights include: Turner's largest painting and only royal commission, The Battle of Trafalgar (1824), one of the jewels in the National Maritime Museum's fine art collection;  Fishermen at Sea, the first oil painting Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy; The Wreck of a Transport Ship ( c. 1810), not seen in London since 1970s, displayed alongside  The Shipwreck  (1805) and  Calais Pier the first time these three storm paintings have been shown together; and  The Wreck Buoy  (1849), Turner's last exhibited marine painting. For more on the exhibition, see LondonTown.com, the capital's most reliable site for information for tourists.

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