J M W Turner

Date of birth: 1775 — Date of death: 1851

Turner was born in London where his father worked as a barber. At the age of 14 he entered the Royal Academy Schools and, in the following year showed his first watercolour there, while his first oil painting was exhibited in the Academy when he was just 21. With Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) he studied at Dr Thomas Monro's (1759-1833). He began a series of tours through England and Wales in the late 1790s and made his first visit to Scotland in 1801. In 1802 he was elected a Royal Academician (RA) at the precociously young age of 27, and his remarkably successful career began to take flight. He travelled widely in both Britain and Europe, and made some of his greatest and most advanced late watercolours, inspired by the landscapes of Italy and Switzerland. Turner is one of a tiny group of British artists whose name is known world-wide - he left a large bequest of both oils and watercolours to the nation and his will was finally fully honoured with the opening of the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain, London which now houses his entire collection.