Landmark exhibition brings together major works by JMW Turner from around the world to present an exciting new perspective on his work and life.
JMW Turner lived and worked at the peak of the industrial revolution, a time when steam replaced sail, machine-power replaced manpower and political and social reforms transformed society. Many of his contemporaries ignored these advances but Turner faced up to the new challenges.
Beginning in the 1790s, when Turner first observed the effects of modern life, the exhibition will follow his fascination for new industry and technology through to his famous paintings of steam boats and railway engines including The Fighting Temeraire (1839) and Rail, Steam and Speed (1844), and show how he updated the language of art to produce revelatory interpretations of modern subjects.