Turner, Joseph Mallord William

Turner, Joseph Mallord William (1775-1851), painter, b. Covent Garden, London.

Joseph Turner was one of the greatest painters of landscape scenes.

He was the son of a barber and began painting as a boy.

He had pictures shown at the Royal Academy when he was only fifteen.

He travelled a great deal during his lifetime, first in England and Scotland and later in France, Italy and Germany.

Wherever he went he drew and painted, and he produced thousands of drawings and hundreds of paintings.

At first he painted scenes in water colors, but from 1796, he began painting in oils.

Turner liked to be alone and towards the end of his life it was said that he was a miser.

When he died he was living in a lodging house in Chelsea (London borough) under a false name. Yet he was a rich man. He had not been married and he left his money to help poor artists.

He left 300 oil paintings and 20,000 water colors and drawings to Britain, and his work can be seen today in London in the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery and the British Museum.

Among his best known paintings are Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, View of Orvieto, Rain, Steam and Speed, Snow Storm and The Fighting ' Temeraire'.

See Turner in His Time, Revised and Updated Edition ~ Andrew Wilton