Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter regarded as one of the greatest British painters of the 19th century. His expressive renditions of light and atmosphere and bold use of colour in landscape painting inspired the early impressionists Monet and Pissarro.

Turner started his career as an architectural draughtsman and watercolourist and gained academic recognition as an oil painter. A child prodigy, Turner was accepted as a student at the Royal Academy of Arts at age 14 and quickly rose to fame, and financial success. By his early twenties, he was selling oil paintings at top market prices and gaining high praise from the academic establishment. By 27 he was a Royal Academician, the highest artistic honour at the time, and become one of the youngest painters to achieve this distinction in the Academy's history. Despite these accomplishments, a few influential critics in aristocratic circles constantly criticised him for his working-class origins.

Turner's artistic style evolved during his lifetime as he never stopped experimenting with new painting techniques. He was a versatile artist who could emulate the styles of Old Masters, producing works that earned admiration from Academicians and art critics. Early on, he started painting in an increasingly expressionistic style, using sketches from his extensive travels throughout England and Europe as inspiration. To complement his depictions of the ocean, rivers, and mountains, he experimented with representing natural phenomena like sunlight, storms, clouds, and fog. Turner's later landscapes became more abstract and were not well received at the time, but are considered today masterpieces.

Turner mastered different printmaking techniques, preferring mezzotints. He spent 12 years completing a collection of over 70 prints using this technique, which he called the Liber Studiorum or Book of Studies. While a commercial failure, it was influential in elevating the status of landscape painting; a genre that, before Turner, was considered of lower artistic value than history painting and portraits, according to the long-established hierarchy of genres.

Turner died a rich man in 1851, aged 76. He was a prolific artist, producing about 550 oil paintings and over 2,000 watercolours during his lifetime. He bequeathed to the nation around 100 finished and 200 unfinished oil paintings. His will included a £140,000 donation in investments and property to support painters, but it was distributed among his relatives after a prolonged trial. Many of his paintings are displayed at the National Gallery and the Tate Britain in London, among other museums.

Biography Childhood

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on 23 April 1775 in a house on Maiden Lane, a street in London's working-class Covent Garden district; during the day it was a thriving commercial market and a busy area at night due to its concentration of theatres, taverns and brothels. The family moved to Hand Court, on the other side from Maiden Lane, when Turner was five years old. Turner was sent to different towns to attend elementary school, including Brentford, Margate, and Sunningwell (now part of Oxfordshire).

Turner's father, William Turner, had a barbershop and wig store on the first floor. By the time Turner was ten years old, he proudly displayed his young son's drawings in the window, which he let customers view up close for one shilling. His father boasted to the artist Thomas Stothard: "My son, sir, is going to be a painter". He would later retire as a barber to help his son in various tasks in his studio and paint gallery.

His mother, Mary Marshall, came from a family of butchers. She started to show symptoms of mental disorder and as they got worse, Turner's father was forced to place her in St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics. She was later moved to Bethlem Hospital, a mental asylum commonly known as "Bedlam", where she died in 1804.

Adult life The inspiration Turner found in the river Thames motivated him to occupy several second homes on or very near the river. The river allowed him to relax by fishing and boating, two of his favourite activities. He rented houses in Isleworth (1804–1806) and Hammersmith, where he converted a boat into a floating studio (1807–1811). In 1811 he bought a plot of land in Twickenham, where he built a house he named Sandycombe Lodge.

Turner never married, and reportedly said: "I hate married men, they never make any sacrifice to the Arts, but are always thinking of their duty to their wives and families, or some rubbish of that sort." From the beginning, he kept his personal life separate from his professional activities. He had a discreet 12-year relationship with his housekeeper, the widow Sarah Danby, and is generally believed to have been the father of her two older daughters, Evelina () and Georgiana ().

Old age Turner's appearance in his later years disconcerted those who met him, as it was difficult to imagine how such an unprepossessing man could produce paintings of such beauty. Observers reported he reminded them of "an English farmer", a "long-stage coachman" or a "river-boat sailor", rather than a renowned painter. When he was young, he invested in fine clothes in order to fit into academic circles, but in his fifties, following his father's death, he became careless about his appearance.

In his seventies, Turner formed a relationship with the widow Sophia Caroline Booth. He frequently stayed with her under the pseudonym "Mr Booth" or "Admiral Booth", in her house at 6 Davis's Place (now Cheyne Walk) in Chelsea, where he died in 1851, at the age of 76.

Turner is buried in St Paul's Cathedral where, according to his wish, he lies near the painter and first president of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Bequest

In an unprecedented gesture, Turner bequeathed to the nation about 100 finished oil paintings as well as 200 unfinished canvases, over 19,000 sketches, drawings and watercolours and some 200 sketchbooks. The finished oil paintings were worth a small fortune, considering that they had been regularly purchased for no less than 200 guineas and up to 450 guineas during his lifetime.

His investments and properties were valued at £140,000, today's equivalent of around £ million. In 1856, after five years of legal disputes started by his cousins, his financial assets were divided among the family, and the Academy received £20,000.

Turner specified that a new gallery should house the bequeathed paintings. At the time, this did not happen because they disagreed over the final site. In 1987, Tate Britain inaugurated the Clore Gallery, fulfilling his final wishes, 136 years after his death.

Career

Early commercial work While still a young man, he secured a reliable income thanks to the rising demand for topographical and architectural watercolours. He worked for several architects, including Thomas Hardwick, James Wyatt and Joseph Bonomi the Elder. In 1789, he began to study under the topographical draughtsman Thomas Malton, who specialised in London views.

He was also hired to paint scenery for theatres. According to Bailey, this "made a lasting impression on him, [as] demonstrated in paintings in the following decades, in which he indulged his fondness for bright lights and flaring colours."

The Academy Turner was recognised as a child prodigy and accepted into the Royal Academy Schools in 1789, at the age of 14, where he was an accomplished student and made rapid progress. Only a year after starting his studies, the watercolour A View of the Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth was accepted to the Academy's Annual Exhibition. In 1796, the Academy awarded the 18-year-old the Greater Silver Palette award for landscape drawing.

Works Turner exhibited early in his career in the annual Royal Academy Exhibition

At 21, he exhibited the oil painting Fishermen at Sea, a dramatic moonlit seascape. The work drew widespread acclaim from contemporary critics and established Turner's reputation as a promising talent in marine painting. During his years at the Academy, Turner was keenly focused on obtaining academic recognition. He followed the teachings of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which at the time defined the Academy's criteria for judging artistic excellence. Reynolds advocated the study and emulation of the Old Masters, in particular those from Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

Dutch Boats in a Gale copied the style of 17th-century Dutch marine painters and was presented the following year at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1801 and "took the Academy by storm". It was hung in the best location of the whole exhibition: in the Great Room, centred, and opposite to the entrance. It so impressed the Academy and the art critics that the following year Turner was admitted as a Royal Academician. At only 27 years of age, he became the second youngest artist in the institution's history to achieve the highest artistic academic recognition in England.

Commercial success In October 1798, he told his friend Joseph Farington that he had 60 commissions for watercolours from different customers and was "earning more money than he could spend." During his sketching excursions, he was always searching for visual ideas but also on the lookout for saleable subjects.

Even though the Napoleonic Wars had considerably reduced the demand for large historical paintings, Turner kept selling them at top prices and receiving substantial commissions from wealthy patrons, which disconcerted older members of the Academy. He took advantage of the demand for pendants – works that were commissioned to hang next to an existing painting. As early as 1799, Turner had received 150 guineas for The Fifth Plague of Egypt from William Beckford. In 1801, Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, one of the richest men in England, paid him 250 guineas (equivalent to around £ today) for the commissioned marine painting Dutch Boats in a Gale. He also sold many smaller pieces, which generated a steady income.

Having learned from Joshua Reynolds, Turner began to emulated the Old Masters. Hamilton notes: "Turner could pick up his brushes and play anybody's tune: He made paintings in the style of Rembrandt, Rubens, Watteau, the Dutchmen Ruysdael, van Goyen and Cuyp, Claude, Poussin, Canaletto – the list goes on. No other great master had demonstrated this chameleon tendency with such seriousness, even to the slightest degree." His talent allowed him to go beyond pastiches and make each style his own – a sort of homage (and in some cases an indirect critique) of these classic works and "this playful chameleon tendency was extraordinarily disarming and had the effect of seducing the collector, catching him off guard."

In 1804, Turner opened his own gallery so he could sell his paintings directly, as he distrusted dealers. Also, a gallery allowed him to group pictures that he wanted to be seen together, something that was not under his control in the Royal Academy exhibitions. His father left his barbershop business to assist him in various tasks in the gallery and studio. For over a decade, the gallery was a regular feature of the London exhibition season of new artworks.

Patrons An early patron, the art collector Thomas Monro, allowed young artists to study his collection. At Monro's home, Turner copied works of the major topographical and architectural draughtsmen of his time, perfecting his drawing skills.

Important support for his work also came from Walter Fawkes, owner of Farnley Hall, near Otley in Yorkshire. He visited Farnley Hall many summers from 1808 to 1824 and became almost part of the family, with a room assigned for his exclusive use.