Recent Events

Charlotte Topsfield, the Gallery’s senior curator in charge of British prints and drawings, will provide us with private access to the annual January display of the Vaughan Bequest at the National Gallery of Scotland. The Gallery will open to the public at 10 a.m. and it will, of course, be possible to remain there after the conclusion of the private view.

Including ‘W.L. Wyllie (1851–1931): Victorian Turnerian’ – lecture by Pieter van der Merwe. The marine work – especially the etchings – of William Lionel Wyllie is both familiar and popular, yet his subject range and quality as an artist, especially in watercolour, are under-recognised.

Colour is the essence of Turner’s work, and his distinctive, sometimes eccentric use of vibrant colour was central to his success as an artist. Featuring more than 70 works, this exciting exhibition, curated by Ian Warrell, will highlight Turner’s engagement with developments in colour theory and his adoption and exploitation of new materials.

Lecture by Andrew Wilton. Thomas Lawrence was a virtuoso – the equivalent in portraiture of Turner in landscape – and they were contemporaries. By 1814 when the Allied leaders came to London to celebrate Napoleon’s defeat, it was appropriate that Lawrence should record them for posterity.

Catherine Parry-Wingfield, chairman of Turner’s House Trust, will lead this walk from Turner’s country retreat to Richmond Hill. Lunch can be bought independently at the end of the walk or you may bring your own picnic. Walkers need to be reasonably fit.

The 37th Kurt Pantzer Memorial Lecture. The Senior Curator of European Art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Colin Harrison will discuss Turner’s relationship with, and many depictions of, the City and University. Among the numerous exhibitions he has curated was ‘Turner’s Oxford’ in 2000.

Talk by David Blayney Brown. In the context of the Tate’s exhibition, ‘Artist and Empire’ (25 November 2015 to 10 April 2016), David Blayney Brown (Curator of British Art 1790-1859 at Tate Britain) will consider what Empire meant to Turner as a subject or commercial opportunity.

Including a lecture by Nick Reese on ‘Turner and the Industrial Sublime’.

Matthew Imms will discuss his recent work on the new Turner Bequest On-Line Catalogue, which has led to numerous exciting discoveries.

After an introduction to the Gallery and its collections by one of the curators, Cecilia Powell will present watercolours by Turner and his predecessors and contemporaries.