Turner on Tour

An exploration of Turner as an artist-traveller, in relation to two important European harbour scenes.

This publication marks the return to the United Kingdom, for the first time in over a century, of two groundbreaking oil paintings by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), on loan from The Frick Collection in New York: Harbour of Dieppe: Changement de Domicile and Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening. They were acquired by wealthy American industrialist Henry Clay Frick in 1914 and have remained in the USA ever since.

Painted in the mid-1820s, Dieppe and Cologne exemplify Turner’s lifelong fascination with the subject of ports and harbours—past and present—as dynamic, transitional places. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1825 and 1826 respectively, they represent in powerfully visual terms the outcomes of Turner’s regular sketching tours within Europe that were central to his fame as an artist-traveller, as well as his radical approach to colour, light, and brushwork.

This sumptuously illustrated publication examines Turner’s creative process, and his use of sketchbooks and watercolours to capture his ideas as he travelled.