J. M. W. (Joseph Mallord William) Turner

Born in London in 1775, Turner showed artistic talent early and entered the Royal Academy schools as a teenager. He built his reputation through watercolor and oil landscapes, then pushed the genre far beyond simple scenery by filling it with atmosphere, power, and emotion.

Across a long career, he traveled widely in Britain and Europe, sketching constantly and transforming those studies into paintings of rivers, mountains, cities, fires, and turbulent seas. Works such as The Fighting Temeraire and Rain, Steam and Speed are especially admired for their brilliant handling of light and their sense of movement.

Turner died in 1851, but his influence only grew afterward. Often seen as a bridge between Romanticism and modern art, he left a vast body of work to the British nation, and Tate Britain now holds the world’s largest collection of his art.