250 years ago a boy is born in the backstreets of London. J M W Turner saw our world differently. But he left behind an astonishing key to his secret: private sketches, 37,000 private sketches. Now for the first time they have all been made public. Revealing the untold story of a radical genius. Turner: The Secret Sketchbooks ***** BBC 2025
‘He had a compulsive need to just sketch.’ ibid. comment
‘When Turner was eight he lost his little sister.’ ibid. Timothy Spall
‘Probably the youngest person [14] ever to get a place as a student at the Royal Academy.’ ibid. art historian
‘Once again the critics are horrified by Turner’s work.’ ibid. comment
Turner died on 19th December 1851. He was 76 years old. ibid.
No romantic artist was drawn more magnetically to the wild forces of nature than Joseph Mallard William Turner. James Fox, Nature & Us: A History, BBC 2021
Modern painting was invented in Britain in the first half of the 19th century. John Constable and J M W Turner were the Darwin and Einstein of 19th century art. The painters who broke more radically with the conventions of the past than any of their contemporaries and any to have come after them. Andrew Graham-Dixon, A History of British Art III: My Wife, My Horse & Myself, BBC 1996
Turner: He painted Hannibal crossing the Alps in 1812. Andrew Graham-Dixon, A History of British Art IV: Modern Art
‘We have been preceded in this great path by the illustrious Monsieur Turner.’ ibid. Impressionists’ letter