Joseph Mallord William Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) was an English Romantic painter, born in Covent Garden, London. He entered the Royal Academy Schools at fourteen and was elected a Royal Academician at twenty-seven. Turner trained in watercolour and topographical drawing, then became known for dramatic landscapes and seascapes in oil, in which light, steam, storm and sea often dissolve the forms. His best-known paintings include Dutch Boats in a Gale (1801), The Slave Ship (1840), Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842) and Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844). He also produced Liber Studiorum, a series of about seventy mezzotints issued between 1806 and 1819, and taught perspective at the Royal Academy. He left a large part of his work to the nation, and the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain opened in 1987 to house it. Turner died in Chelsea in 1851 and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. His handling of light influenced the Impressionists.