J. M. W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner was an English Romantic painter, printmaker, and watercolourist known as 'the painter of light'. Rising from humble origins as a London barber's son, he entered the Royal Academy schools at age 14 and became a full academician at 26, eventually bequeathing his vast collection of thousands of paintings and sketches to the British nation.

Turner's landscapes evolved from topographical precision into swirling, atmospheric vortexes of luminous steam, fire, smoke, and blazing sea spray. Masterpieces such as The Fighting Temeraire (1838) and Rain, Steam and Speed (1844) elevated landscape painting to epic heights, prefiguring modern abstraction and Impressionism.