Canterbury | Kent | United Kingdom | England | Europe
Currently On View:
On view
Exhibition History:
J.M.W. Turner: Romance & Reality (Yale Center for British Art, 2025-03-29 - 2025-07-27)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)
Publications:
Graham Reynolds, Turner, Thames & Hudson, London, 2020, fig. 12, NJ18.T85 R49 2020 (YCBA)Andrew Wilton, The life and work of J.M.W. Turner, Academy Editions, London, 1979, pp. 306-307, no. 54, NJ18 T85 +W577 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Yale Center for British Art, Great British watercolors : from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, pp. 101-103, no. 43, ND1928 .Y35 2007 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
These watercolors are among Turner’s earliest finished works, made just a few years after he began his formal training. Their dark outlines and delicate washes are typical of the topographical techniques Turner learned. But they demonstrate a unique responsiveness to surface textures, exceptional variety of line, and a strong sense of light and shade. This is even more apparent in A Great Tree, a careful study of an ancient oak in the grounds of a cottage belonging to his early patron, Dr. Thomas Monro. Gallery label for J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality (Yale Center for British Art, March - 29, 2025 - July 27, 2025)