J.M.W. Turner
1775-1851 · British (London) · Romanticism
Known for: Romantic landscape painter who dissolved form into light and color, anticipating Impressionism and abstraction
Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy at 15 and became the youngest-ever full Academician at 26. He was obsessive about light - once having himself tied to a ship's mast during a storm to observe effects.
His late paintings became so abstract that critics mocked them, but he pushed further anyway. He had two daughters by different women, neither publicly acknowledged. He died in a rented room under a false name. 'The sun is God' were reportedly his last words.
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