‘A standout figure’: year of UK events to mark JMW Turner’s 250th birthday
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Museums and galleries announce festival of events and exhibitions to celebrate influential British artist. He is considered to be the one of the greatest and most influential British artists of all time, who travelled the length and breadth of the country to capture some of its most dramatic scenery.
![[Self-Portrait (c.1799).]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/07502f10b0836670932664c0df166575ca2e3173/172_427_1659_2073/master/1659.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Now, 250 years after the birth of JMW Turner, cultural institutions in Britain have announced a year-long festival of special exhibitions and events to celebrate the man and his work. Among these is an exhibition of Turner’s rarely seen images of wildlife, which will open at Turner’s House in Twickenham – the only remaining home designed by the artist himself.
At Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, four of Turner’s paintings of the Bridges at Walton will be displayed together for the first time. At Harewood House in Leeds, Turner’s connection to another historic figure, Jane Austen, will be explored, while the Holburne Museum in Bath will exhibit some of the artist’s finest watercolours from a private collection.
At Tate Britain, an exhibition will bring together the works of Turner and his artistic rival John Constable, who also set his sights on transforming landscape painting. Also at Tate Britain, there will be a new room of highlights from the Turner Bequest (a huge collection of Turner’s works that was given to the nation) in the Clore Gallery.
