Recent Events

Francesca Kaes, Curator, will introduce a wide-ranging selection of drawings and watercolours by Turner from the Museum’s outstanding collection, the product of several generous bequests from discerning private collectors such as George Salting (in 1910) and R.W. Lloyd (in 1958). Many of these are superb finished watercolours.

A two-mile walk from Ramsgate to Broadstairs with (optional, self-provided) packed lunch en route, followed by train from Broadstairs to Margate, arriving by 3 p.m. to visit Turner Contemporary and view Turner’s Waves Breaking on a Lee Shore at Margate.

A social gathering at 21–22 Maiden Lane, with a laying of flowers at the Turner Society/Westminster City Council plaque marking the site of Turner’s birth and the Eamonn Hughes Turner-inspired sculpture nearby. Members will be invited to celebrate with an informal drinks/lunch party at the Porterhouse bar which now occupies the site.

A Twenty-first-century case for ‘Early Turner’ – Lecture by Professor Leo Costello. While great attention has been paid to Turner’s later career, much less has been given to his early work. This lecture will consider both definitions of and stakes in the concept of ‘Early Turner’.

A visit to ‘JMW Turner and Changing Visions of Landscape’ with Francesca Vanke, Senior Curator and Keeper of Fine and Decorative Art.

Charlotte Topsfield, the Scottish National Gallery’s Senior Curator in charge of prints and drawings, will host a private, out of hours view (starting at 9 a.m.) of the National Gallery of Ireland’s Turner watercolours from the Vaughan Bequest.

To be followed by an informal talk by Catherine Parry-Wingfield: Images of Turner – Boy, Man and ‘Afterlife’.

Amy Concannon, Manton Senior Curator of Historic British Art, will lead Society members through the rehang of the Turner Galleries and discuss the response from the public.

The Society’s summer outing will be to Petworth, where our tour will be guided by Emily Knight, the National Trust Curator.

The 44th Kurt Pantzer Memorial Lecture by Professor Malcolm Andrews. The lecture argues for affinities between Dickens’s prose evocation of Venice and Turner’s oils and watercolours of the city.