The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free

The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free is the first exhibition devoted to the extraordinary work J.M.W. Turner created between 1835 and his death in 1851. Bringing together spectacular works from the UK and abroad, this exhibition celebrates Turner’s astonishing creative flowering in these later years when he produced many of his finest pictures but was also controversial and unjustly misunderstood.

Highlights of the exhibition include such important pictures as Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus and Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino, rarely reunited since first exhibited together in 1839; The Wreck Buoy 1849; and magnificent watercolours like Heidelberg: Sunset c.1840 and the seldom-seen Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland c.1837.

The show also brings together major series of works including a group of unusual square pictures, casting a light on Turner’s innovative techniques. Newly identified watercolours of a fire at the Tower of London in 1841 are shown with the spectacular painting Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons 1835 and the exhibition concludes with Turner’s last exhibited pictures from 1850, depicting the classical lovers Dido and Aeneas. It is a panoramic survey of a bountiful and significant period of exceptional energy and vigour, maintained despite failing health.