J. M. W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner was the son of a Covent Garden barber and entered the Royal Academy Schools at fourteen. He travelled constantly through Britain and Europe, filling sketchbooks with watercolours, and his oil paintings dissolved storms, sea and sunlight into colour in a way that looked ahead to Impressionism. His best-known works include The Fighting Temeraire and Rain, Steam and Speed, both in the National Gallery. He left the contents of his studio to the nation, and the Turner Bequest is shown in the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain.