J. M. W. Turner

J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) was born in Covent Garden, London, the son of a barber. He began as an architectural draughtsman and watercolourist, studying from 1789 under the topographical draughtsman Thomas Malton, and entered the Royal Academy Schools that year at fourteen, where he followed the teachings of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was elected a Royal Academician at twenty-seven, the second youngest in the Academy's history, and later became its Professor of Perspective. He drew on sketches from extensive travels in Britain and Europe, and his landscapes and seascapes explored sunlight, storms, cloud and fog with a boldness of colour that inspired Monet and Pissarro. His later work grew more abstract and was poorly received at the time. His Liber Studiorum helped raise the standing of landscape painting. He produced some 550 oil paintings and over 2,000 watercolours, bequeathed around 300 oils to the nation, and is buried in St Paul's Cathedral near Reynolds. Here: The Fighting Temeraire, voted Britain's greatest painting in a BBC poll in 2005.