Latest news with #JMWTurner
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Turner's earliest exhibited oil painting is up for auction after disappearing for 150 years
Lost for over 150 years, one of JMW Turner's earliest oil paintings is about to go on display at London's Sotheby's before being auctioned. Titled 'The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol', it depicts a dramatic stormy scene engulfing Hot Wells House in Bristol, UK - as seen from the east bank of the River Avon, where the Clifton Suspension Bridge now sits. Painted by Turner when he was just 17 years old, it is now believed to be the artist's earliest exhibited oil painting, having been displayed at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1793. Related More than 200 items from Princess Diana's wardrobe go up for auction Its last public appearance was in 1858, at an exhibition in Tasmania, before disappearing into private collections for over a century and a half. Upon being rediscovered last year, Turner's signature was revealed during the restoration process. 'Its reemergence now allows viewers and scholars alike to appreciate the startling ambition of this great artist at such an early moment in his career, by which stage he is already demonstrating a level of confidence and competency in oil painting far beyond what was previously known,' a press release states. The painting will go on public display at Sotheby's in London from 28 June to 1 July 2025, ahead of being auctioned for an estimated value of £200,000-300,000 (approx. €237,544 to €356,316). Related David Lynch auction: More than 450 personal items go under the hammer The auction also coincides with the 250th anniversary of Turner's birth, as various exhibitions and events across the UK - including London's Tate, National Gallery and the Turner Contemporary - celebrate the artist's legacy. Considered one of the world's most influential 18th-century artists, Turner was a key figure within Romanticism and best known for his dramatic landscapes, ambient with bold colour and tumultuous skies. While 'The Rising Squall' had previously been referenced in obituaries, it was mistaken as a watercolour and therefore excluded from the first catalogue of Turner's exhibited oil paintings. Based on a drawing from the artist's earliest sketchbook and a watercolour, both of which are currently held at the Tate Britain, the artwork is believed to have been first acquired by, and possibly painted for, Reverend Robert Nixon - a friend and early supporter of Turner's. Before now, experts considered Turner's earliest exhibited oil painting to be the 'Fisherman at Sea', displayed at the Royal Academy in 1796.
Euronews
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Euronews
A rare Turner masterpiece has been rediscovered after 150 years
Lost for over 150 years, one of JMW Turner's earliest oil paintings is about to go on display at London's Sotheby's before being auctioned. Titled 'The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol', it depicts a dramatic stormy scene engulfing Hot Wells House in Bristol, UK - as seen from the east bank of the River Avon, where the Clifton Suspension Bridge now sits. Painted by Turner when he was just 17 years old, it is now believed to be the artist's earliest exhibited oil painting, having been displayed at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1793. Its last public appearance was in 1858, at an exhibition in Tasmania, before disappearing into private collections for over a century and a half. Upon being rediscovered last year, Turner's signature was revealed during the restoration process. 'Its reemergence now allows viewers and scholars alike to appreciate the startling ambition of this great artist at such an early moment in his career, by which stage he is already demonstrating a level of confidence and competency in oil painting far beyond what was previously known,' a press release states. The painting will go on public display at Sotheby's in London from 28 June to 1 July 2025, ahead of being auctioned for an estimated value of £200,000-300,000 (approx. €237,544 to €356,316). The auction also coincides with the 250th anniversary of Turner's birth, as various exhibitions and events across the UK - including London's Tate, National Gallery and the Turner Contemporary - celebrate the artist's legacy. Considered one of the world's most influential 18th-century artists, Turner was a key figure within Romanticism and best known for his dramatic landscapes, ambient with bold colour and tumultuous skies. While 'The Rising Squall' had previously been referenced in obituaries, it was mistaken as a watercolour and therefore excluded from the first catalogue of Turner's exhibited oil paintings. Based on a drawing from the artist's earliest sketchbook and a watercolour, both of which are currently held at the Tate Britain, the artwork is believed to have been first acquired by, and possibly painted for, Reverend Robert Nixon - a friend and early supporter of Turner's. Before now, experts considered Turner's earliest exhibited oil painting to be the 'Fisherman at Sea', displayed at the Royal Academy in 1796. Hollywood heavyweights Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have become co-owners of the Australia SailGP team. The Deadpool & Wolverine stars joined driver and CEO Tom Slingsby on Thursday in leading the team's rebrand after several successful seasons, winning three championships in its four seasons. The team will be called the BONDS Flying Roos, with the Australian underwear company BONDS as its title partner. 'We're incredibly excited to set sail together in this new adventure," Reynolds and Jackman said in a joint statement released through SailGP. "Hugh brings a deep love for and pride in his home country, as well as being an avid fan of sailing. He will also be bringing his overly clingy emotional support human along for the ride. Apologies in advance to Australia. No comment on whether we're writing this in our BONDS. No further questions.' Slingsby said in a release that Jackman and Reynolds bring 'unmatched star power, a love for storytelling, and a sharp sense of (humour) that fits perfectly with our team." "With BONDS joining as our Title Partner and the launch of the BONDS Flying Roos," Slingsby added, "we're building something distinctly Australian; a team driven by spirit, resilience, and national pride.' This is the latest sports venture for Reynolds, who along with fellow Hollywood actor Rob McElhenney is a co-owner of Wrexham, one of the world's oldest football clubs. Reynolds and McElhenney were also among a group of investors in the Alpine Formula One team in 2023 and were part of an investment group that acquired Colombian club La Equidad earlier this year. The BONDS Flying Roos SailGP Team is expected to make its debut at the Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix starting tomorrow.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
One of JMW Turner's earliest paintings rediscovered after 150 years
An oil painting of a stormy Bristol landscape has been rediscovered as one of the earliest works of JMW Turner, created when the artist was 17 years old and lost to his canon for the past 150 years. Turner's signature on The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol was discovered in the process of cleaning the painting after it was sold last year. At the time of the sale, the work was attributed to a 'follower of Julius Caesar Ibbetson', an 18th-century artist. Dreweatts, the auctioneers, had suggested the work would fetch £600-800, although the buyer is believed to have paid less. Now, in a year of exhibitions and events to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of the man widely considered to be Britain's greatest and most influential artist, the painting is to be sold again. This time it will be auctioned by Sotheby's with an estimated value of £200,000-300,000. 'We are as certain as it's possible to be that this painting is by Turner,' said Julian Gascoigne of Sotheby's. The painting had been examined by 'all the leading Turner scholars alive today who unanimously endorsed the attribution'. As well as the recently revealed signature, there were 'clear references to a painting of this subject' in obituaries of Turner and in early literature on the artist in the years after his death in 1851. But in the second half of the 19th century, 'a series of mistakes were made, which were repeated and compounded, with it described as a watercolour', said Gascoigne. It was omitted from the first complete resume of Turner's work published in 1901, and 'over the course of the 20th century, it was forgotten about as just another relatively minor early watercolour'. The person who bought the painting last year initially thought it may have been the work of Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, a French émigré painter living in London whose studio Turner frequently visited. De Loutherbourg's wife, suspicious that Turner was intent on appropriating her husband's painting technique, eventually threw him out. The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol was the first oil painting exhibited by Turner, at the Royal Academy in 1793, the year after it was painted. Based on a drawing in his sketchbook and a watercolour, both held by Tate Britain, it depicts Hot Wells House in Bristol seen from the east bank of the River Avon, now the site of the Clifton suspension bridge, amid swirling storm clouds and tempestuous waters. Hot Wells was a hot spring and spa that was a popular attraction in Georgian England. The painting was first acquired by the Rev Robert Nixon, a customer at Turner's father's barbershop who befriended and encouraged the young artist. Nixon was among the first to urge Turner to paint with oils. 'It gives us a real insight into the ambition that Turner was clearly exhibiting at this early stage of his career, and shows a level of competency in oil painting, which is quite a technical medium,' said Gascoigne. 'It changes a lot of what we know, or thought we knew, about Turner's early work and our understanding of how his technique and style evolved.' Turner applied the oil paint thinly, almost like a watercolour. 'He's feeling his way through the medium, but bringing all the experience he already had as a watercolour painter to his application of oil. 'This technique of washy, translucent glazes of paint is something he comes back to later in his career, in the 1830s and 40s, and is one of the things that allowed him to completely revolutionise the art of painting – breaking down forms, seducing them in light, taking his painting technique towards the level of experimentation and abstraction that we think of today with his late, great masterpieces.' At the time of last year's sale, the painting was 'very dirty, it hadn't been touched for a long period of time, it had very old discoloured yellow varnish on it,' said Gascoigne. The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol will go on public display for the first time in 167 years later this month at Sotheby's in London before being auctioned on 2 July.
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Turner's rarely seen watercolours take centre stage in Bath
It is, says the curator Ian Warrell, a little like peering over JMW Turner's shoulder as he puzzles out how to create the sweeping land and seascapes that made him one of the greatest ever. An exhibition of the artist's rarely seen watercolours is opening in Bath, which includes scenes of the English West Country that he created as a teenager to a series of sketched seascapes when he was a much older man gazing out at storms off the Kent coast. Called Impressions in Watercolour, the exhibition gives insight into Turner's methods and serves a reminder of how important he was as a bridge between earlier landscape painting and the radical abstraction of the 20th century. The first of the 32 Turner watercolours on show at the Holburne Museum from Friday 23 May were painted in the early 1790s when the artist was about 16 or 17. One is a view of Bath from a hill made to look much more craggy than the actual rolling landscape around the Georgian city. Next to it is another West Country view, the romantic ruins of Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire. Both show Turner's interest in the 'theory of the sublime' that came to the fore later in his sea storms and mountain scenes. 'It was all very conventional at this stage,' said Warrell, a Turner specialist. 'But you can see he is ambitious.' A highlight of the exhibition is a series of seascapes that Turner painted as a much more mature artist in Margate, Kent. Warrell said: 'He'd been to Margate as a child because London was so polluted that his family sent him to school there, and then he went back again from the 1820s repeatedly. 'He'd look out from his lodgings out on to the beach and see the sun rising and setting and the boats and all the goings on. Turner said the skies over Margate and that area were the best in Europe, better than the Bay of Naples. The more turbulent the weather … the happier he was. 'All the time he's experimenting. Some of these watercolours are very simple meditations. Some probably would only have taken him no more than half an hour.' Unlike the great Turner paintings such as The Fighting Temeraire, which is viewed by hundreds of thousands of people every year, these pictures are from private collections and are rarely seen or reproduced. They show how he continued to play with and refine themes and feelings. A Steamboat and Crescent Moon was sketched in Margate in about 1845, seven years after he painted The Fighting Temeraire, but a squiggle of smoke harks back to the fiery funnel in the grand oil painting. 'All the time he's doing this, he's training his hand and eye, coordinating, trying ideas that he might use,' Warrell said. 'It's bold and his colour is different to anybody's work at that time. He doesn't always use the widest range of colours but the yellows and blues are very distinctive. He's trying to capture a moment or just the atmosphere of that moment.' Also featured in the exhibition are the artist's contemporaries, including Thomas Girtin, who like Turner was born 250 years ago in 1775, and John Sell Cotman. The exhibition runs from 23 May until 14 September.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Yahoo
What is storm-watching and where should you try it?
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). There's nothing new in feeling awe in the face of nature's grandeur. The Romantics were enraptured by it back in the 19th century. English artist JMW Turner stirred the soul by painting brooding skies of biblical proportions, while philosopher Immanuel Kant explored the sublime — that profound blend of terror and wonder evoked by observing natural phenomena like a raging thunderstorm. However, curated storm-watching tourism didn't really take off until 1996, when the original of cult-classic movie Twister sparked a whirlwind of interest in extreme weather. That same year, the Wickaninnish Inn opened its doors in Tofino, on the rugged western coast of Vancouver Island. Inspired by childhood memories of marvelling at the region's wild winter storms with his family, owner Charles McDiarmid envisioned a sanctuary where visitors could embrace — not escape — Tofino's furious season, when Pacific storms unleash monster waves that tower up to 20ft high. Perched on a bluff facing an uninterrupted ocean expanse (the next landmass is Japan), the inn was designed for full immersion. Every one of its 75 rooms has huge windows built to withstand 100mph winds, while crackling fireplaces and thick wool blankets create a hygge vibe. Guest rooms also come stocked with waterproof gear so adventurous types can brave the conditions, because in Tofino, there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing. It was a bold concept. 'People thought we were crazy to market these wild winter maelstroms as a reason to visit,' Charles admits with a laugh. The gamble paid off. Between November and February in its opening year, the hotel's occupancy rates surged from 30% to 58%. Guests, initially attracted by the novelty, discovered something more profound. 'It's about escaping the city and appreciating how special our natural environment is,' Charles reflects, noting that, regardless of their ages, his guests share a common trait: an adventurous spirit. The success of Wickaninnish Inn sent ripples through Tofino and its neighbouring town, Ucluelet. Embracing the rise of storm-watching tourism, Vancouver Island rallied behind the concept. Hotels including Crystal Cove Beach Resort, Long Beach Lodge Resort, Black Rock Oceanfront Resort and SookePoint Ocean Cottage Resort all cater to squall-seekers, with their beachfront locations, surf-friendly waters and luxurious-yet-cosy atmospheres. BC Ferries Vacations also runs tailored storm-watching holiday packages when the weather outside is frightful, including both transport and accommodation at well placed hotels. Meanwhile the Tourism Tofino website highlights the best spots for windswept beach walks, plus a cosy inland sauna to warm up in afterwards. The strategy has proven successful, as the once-quiet fishing villages of Tofino and Ucluelet have evolved into year-round adventure hubs. Between November and March, traditionally considered the off-season for tourism, Tofino's hotel occupancy now consistently ranges from 46% to 58%, a trend that's remained steady for the past six years. Yet, while many islanders welcome storm tourism, safety remains a concern. Liam Ogle, a guide with Long Beach Nature Tours, warns travellers not to underestimate the risks posed by extreme weather, especially in the era of climate change. 'Forest trails can be dangerous with falling branches, and coastal areas pose risks due to storm surges,' he cautions. Before venturing out, he advises checking the Coast Smart website for safety tips. 'Nature here is both intense and beautiful. Respect for Mother Nature is deeply ingrained in the local community.' While Vancouver Island's Wickaninnish Inn may have pioneered storm-lashed travel, hold onto your hats, because its influence has spread around the world. In BC'S capital, Victoria, the tourist board has rebranded harsh winters as 'cosy season', creating suggested itineraries for visitors that incorporate blustery hikes to lighthouses followed by candlelit meals. Also embracing the philosophy that foul weather is subjective, Washington State's Long Beach Peninsula is celebrated as a prime spot to view a king tide — a rare, supersized tide that occurs when the gravitational forces of the moon, sun and Earth align to amplify tidal ranges. Closer to home, and proving that gale-force getaways have stepped into the world of luxury, the five-star Headland Hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, rolls out the red carpet with storm-watching breaks featuring a spa overlooking waves crashing against the rugged cliffs. A third of the hotel's winter guests check in specifically for their storm-watching package. Whether braving high winds on a driftwood-strewn beach in Tofino or witnessing the majestic furore through binoculars from the comfort of a hotel room, it's safe to say a certain kind of traveller is drawn to nature's wildest moments. 'There's a mesmerising contrast between the raw power of a storm and its undeniable beauty — one which is both awe-inspiring and humbling,' states Charles. 'Experiencing such forces first-hand is a stark reminder of nature's immense scale and our own infinitesimal place within it.' Published in the Coastal Collection 2025 by National Geographic Traveller (UK).To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
