2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), possibly the most widely admired and influential British artist of all time. His life and work is currently being celebrated beyond the UK with a major exhibition “J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality”, and an impressive events program, at the Vale Center for British Art, in Connecticut.
The exhibition runs at the Center until 29th July 2025, but if you can’t get to it, there are plenty of celebrations of his work to enjoy right here in the UK, including the upcoming “Turner: Always Contemporary” at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, running from 25th October until 22nd February 2026, exploring both the artist’s own work and his enduring impact on later generations of artists.
Described as the “father of modern art,” Turner shocked with his unique brushwork and use of colour, his portrayals of the modern world unlike any seen before. As one of the country’s greatest painters, he fittingly lends his name to the contemporary Turner Prize.
Born near Covent Garden in London in 1775, Turner, a child prodigy who began his formal training at the Royal Academy Schools aged just 14, is perhaps the best-loved English Romantic artist. Learning from copying the work of others to develop his own unique style, he became known as “the painter of light” and transformed the art of landscape painting in Britain.
From detailed topographical studies to expansive, atmospheric vistas his works celebrate the diversity and emotive power of nature. His works, championed by the contemporary critic John Ruskin, include watercolours, oils and engravings.
Turner became interested in contemporary technology, as can be seen from “The Fighting Temeraire” and “Rain, Steam and Speed”. At the time his free, expressive treatment of these subjects was criticised, but is now widely appreciated.
As the National Gallery notes here, later in life, he campaigned for the abolition of slavery, his powerful 1840 work, “The Slave Ship”, influenced by the campaign against the trade. It is now held by MFA Boston in Massachusetts.
Although Turner was trained within the English topographical tradition, his practice was deeply rooted in a wider European heritage of landscape painting. He was inspired by 17th-century Dutch artists such as Willem van der Velde, and by the Italianate landscapes of Claude and Richard Wilson.
Turner pushed this inheritance to its limits in pursuit of his own expressive ends, astounding contemporaries with his bold and highly original compositions.
His unique approach paved the way for a new form of landscape art, one that combined virtuoso brushwork with brilliant colour, dazzling light effects, and an almost abstract sensibility. As a result, Turner came to be recognised as the most radical and innovative painter of his time and has continued to be so ever since.
Turner’s will, which was under litigation for many years, left more than 19,000 watercolours, drawings, and oils to the British nation. Most of these works are in the National Gallery and the Tate Britain, in London. The latter offers the world’s largest free display of paintings by the artist.
Later this year, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool will host “Turner: Always Contemporary”, running from 25th October until 22nd February 2026, exploring both the artist’s own work and his enduring impact on later generations of artists. It will offer fresh perspectives on Turner and his legacy, highlighting how he grappled with issues that remain relevant today: climate change, immigration, tourism, and the role of the artist.
“J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality”, the first show focused on Turner to be held at the Yale Center for British Art in more than thirty years, showcases the museum’s rich holdings of the artist’s work. Unequalled in North America, this collection includes some of Turner’s most acclaimed oil paintings, notably his masterpiece “Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed” (1818) and his celebrated later painting “Staffa, Fingal’s Cave” (1831–32).
Alongside these major works, the exhibition will also feature outstanding watercolours and prints from the YCBA’s collection, including the artist’s only complete sketchbook outside of the British Isles.
“Turner’s works are akin to painted poems, filled with incident, anecdote, and symbolism,” says the Center in its description of the exhibition. “Conveying both the beauty and cruelty of nature and human life, they shed fascinating light on the artist’s world and reveal an aesthetic – and moral – complexity that is at once discomforting and strangely modern.”
The exhibition is generously supported by the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation.
Established by a gift from Paul Mellon of his British art collection to Yale in 1966, The Yale Center for British Art at Yale University in central New Haven, Connecticut, houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside Britain. The collection of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, rare books, and manuscripts reflects the development of British art and culture from the Elizabethan period onward.
• “J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality”, the Vale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut runs until Sunday 27th July 2025 | Free| Full details of the exhibition and associated events program here | View the children’s brochure and exhibition brochure (PDF format)
Admission to The Yale Center for British Art is free.
The museum is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm; Thursdays from 10.00 am to 8.00 pm (September to June); and Sundays from 11 am to 5.00 pm. The museum is closed on Mondays (except for Yale Commencement) and on Juneteenth, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day
Related Publications
• Turner, the inaugural instalment in the YCBA’s Collection Series of illustrated books, explores the museum’s outstanding Turner holdings in a manner that engages the general reader and expert alike.
• Turner’s Last Sketchbook is a facsimile of the artist’s last known intact sketchbook, now in the YCBA collection. A poem by Tracey Emin (b. 1963) expressing her personal connection with Turner’s work accompanies this book.
Turner: Always Contemporary
The Walker Art Gallery William Brown Street, Liverpool, United Kingdom, L3 8EL, running from 25th October until 22nd February 2026 | Exhibition details here
This exhibition will mark 250 years since the birth of JMW Turner, exploring both the artist’s own work and his enduring impact on later generations of artists. Turner: Always Contemporary will include National Museums Liverpool’s collection of Turner’s oil paintings, works on paper and prints, alongside modern and contemporary artworks that delve into themes of travel, landscape, and artistic experimentation. A number of important and influential loaned works will also feature.
It will offer fresh perspectives on Turner and his legacy, highlighting how he grappled with issues that remain relevant today: climate change, immigration, tourism, and the role of the artist. Alongside Turner’s works, visitors will encounter pieces by Claude Monet, Ethel Walker, Bridget Riley and many more, bringing together 250 years of art to examine Turner’s timeless appeal.
Web Links
• Turner: Painting The Fighting Temeraire | National Gallery
Matthew Morgan gives an in-depth talk on Joseph Mallord William Turner’s renowned painting ‘The Fighting Temeraire’. Enjoy an insight into Turner’s painting technique, and discover the reasons why Turner might have chosen to paint this warship that served in the Battle of Trafalgar.
• The National Gallery: Joseph Mallord William Turner
• National Gallery Scotland: Joseph Mallord William Turner
• Royal Academy: J.M.W. Turner RA (1775 – 1851)
See the world’s largest free display of paintings by JMW Turner
• Turner at the Tate: J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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