Canterbury | Saint Augustine's Gate | St. Augustine's Gate | St. Augustine's Abbey | England | Kent | Cumbria | United Kingdom | 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)The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)Making History - Antiquaries in Britain 1707-2007 (Yale Center for British Art, 2012-02-02 - 2012-05-27)Papermaking and The Art of Watercolor in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Paul Sandby's "View of…Mr. Whatman's Turkey Mill" (Yale Center for British Art, 2006-02-22 - 2006-06-04)The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05)Translations - Turner and Printmaking (Yale Center for British Art, 1993-09-29 - 1993-12-05)Presences of Nature - British Landscape 1780-1830 (Yale Center for British Art, 1982-10-20 - 1983-02-27)
Publications:
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British watercolour drawings in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Victoria, BC, 1971, unpaginated, no. 43, pl. 9, ND1928 .A76 1971 (LC) (YCBA)Timothy J. Barringer, Picturesque and sublime : Thomas Cole's trans-Atlantic inheritance, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2018, p. 25, fig. 19, NJ18 .C67 B37 2018 (YCBA)G. A. Bremner, Imperial gothic : religious architecture and high Anglican culture in the British empire, c. 1840-70, , The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, New Haven and London, 2013, p. 332, fig. 334, NA4829.A6 .B74 2013 (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, J. M. W. Turner : A selection of paintings and watercolors in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1983, p. 6, NJ18 .T85 C68 + Oversize (YCBA)Louis Hawes, Presences of Nature : British Landscape, 1780-1830, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1982, pp. 154-155, no. III.26, pl. 129, ND1354.4 H38 (YCBA)Eric M. Lee, Translations : Turner and printmaking, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1993, p. 12, no. 5, NJ18 .T85 L44 1993 (YCBA)Painting in England 1700-1850 : collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon : Exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, , , Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1963, p. 95, no. 143, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA)Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd. sale catalogue : 89th Annual Exhibition of Water-Colours and Drawings [Second Edition] : February 5 - March 3, 1962, Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, 1962, p. 7, lot 52, Dealer Cat. Thos. Agnew 1962Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, pp. 168-169, no. 144, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA)Andrew Wilton, The life and work of J.M.W. Turner, Academy Editions, London, 1979, p. 304, no. 33, NJ18 T85 +W577 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)