Turner Watercolours

Martin Butlin

Published by Barrie & Jenkins, hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated

This expertly chosen selection from J. M. W. Turner's immense output provides an epitome of the artistic achievement of the supreme English watercolourist and one of the great painters of the world. Martin Butlin is Keeper of the British Collection at the Tate Gallery, London, and co-organiser of the 1975 Royal Academy bi-centenary Turner exhibition. He outlines the development of Turner as a watercolourist, and explains the relationship between his watercolours and his major oil paintings. His detailed comments on the plates give a lively evocation of the artistic period and mood of each watercolour.


The illustrations begin with the tighter, detailed works which were but masterly examples of the topographic art of the time, and pass through the broadening phase where his private world invaded his public art, to culininate in the wonderful rhapsodies of colour which in his later years marked lijm out as a genius, who speaks to us in the language of today. The thirty-two superbly printed plates, all in colour, include several works which have never been reproduced before. This book is unique, both in quality and scope.


Each of these 32 watercolours is as self-contained and as self-explanatory as an opal or a sunset. What was needed was a standard of reproduction worthy of the incredible delicacy of the originals. That standard has been achieved in a book that approaches perfection' -ERIC NEWTON, The Guardian

`The commentaries explain lucidly the technical methods in each case, bringing us close to the artist's elbow, something the secretive Turner would never have allowed' – EVELYN JO L L Apollo

`The quality of the reproductions and of the whole book is superb' – Studio