Turner at the Tate

Martin Butlin

Published by Tate Gallery, hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated

Well over half Turner's oil paintings are at the Tate Gallery. The collection ranges from Turner's first known exhibited oil painting to work from the last year in which he showed at the Royal Academy, a spread of fifty-five years, and from delicate lay-ins of pure colour to highly finished subject pictures. This selection of ninety-two colour plates has been chosen to show Turner's art at its finest and includes such masterpieces as 'The Shipwreck', `Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps', Trosty Morning', `Crossing the Brook', `Chichester Canal', Interior at Petworth', `Yacht approaching the Coast', 'Peace – Burial at Sea', 'The Sun of Venice going to Sea', `Snow Storm – SteamBoat off a Harbour's Mouth' and `Norham Castle'. All the plates have been carefully compared with the original paintings. A short introduction summarises Turner's career and his attitude to colour, and there is also a note on the Turner Bequest.

Martin Butlin is Keeper of the Historie British Collection at the Tate. A leading authority on Turner, he was co-organiser of the great Turner bicentenary exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1974-5 and is joint author of the definitive two-volume catalogue The Puintings ofj.M.W. Turner, published in 1977 and winner of the Mitchell Prize, 1978.