Turner: In Light and Shade – A Tour of the Whitworth’s exhibition

Overview

The Whitworth is pleased to present a special exhibition that looks afresh at the work of Britain’s greatest landscape artist J.M.W. Turner. The exhibition is being shown as part of a national celebration of the artist on the 250th anniversary of his birth.

For the first time in over 100 years the entire published set of Turner’s celebrated Liber Studiorum series, the Latin title can be translated to ‘Book of Studies’, has been specially conserved and is on show at the Whitworth.

Turner: In Light and Shade unveils 71 of Turner’s published prints, displayed alongside major paintings loaned from private and public collections across Europe, as well as the artists’ most celebrated watercolours from the Whitworth collection.

Join the Whitworth’s Curator (Historic Art), Imogen Holmes-Roe as she discusses how the exhibition rethinks Turner’s legacy by exploring his genius as both painter and a master of printmaking – which was vital to the development of his reputation as an artist. At a time when printmaking was regarded as secondary to painting, this collection display reveals how Turner approached the print medium with the same innovation and expressive freedom that marked his oil and watercolour paintings.

In Light and Shade offers an unprecedented opportunity to view this extraordinary series