Last week I showed a few photos of my sketchbook from my visit to see the Turner watercolor exhibit but that’s just the tip of a very large iceberg. You see, today I’m going to inundate you with photos I took of both the location and the exhibit itself. Fortunately photos were not only allowed but encouraged.

J.M.W. Turner… Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April, 1775 – 19 December, 1851)

The Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, CT is perfect, located on the Mystic River just as it empties into Fishers Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.  It seems William Turner, throughout his life was enamored of the sea and its seafaring vessels. The exhibit includes works spanning his life as early on he depicts architecture for his patrons while he transitions to studies of landscapes and light. All of these are awe-inspiring but I was particularly taken with his more atmospheric ethereal pieces done in his later years when he bucked society’s expectations and experimented and created for his own pleasure.

The photos that follow are roughly in chronological order and are heavily weighted to his later work that I love so much.  I’m not going to describe them but instead have captioned each work for reference.  Oh, and please excuse the reflections from the glass… you may want to google the captions to find better online images.

Loch Long Morning 1801

Durham Cathedral: The Interior, Looking East Along the South Aisle 1797-8

Brent Toor and the Lydford Valley, Devon 1814-16

A Hulk or Husks on the River Tamar: Twilight 1811-14

Kirkby Lonsdale 1817

Shields Lighthouse 1823-6

Banditti, for Samuel Rogers’s Italy 1826-7

The Forum, for Rogers’s Italy 1826-7

Venice: San Giorgio Maggiore – Early Morning 1819

Marly-Sur-Seine: Color Beginning 1829-30

A Wreck, Possibly Related to “Longships Lighthouse, Land’s End” 1834

Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland 1837

(Whitehaven), Cumbria 1835-6

Coastal Terrain 1830-45

Sea and Sky 1845

Venice: Looking Across the Lagoon at Sunset 1840

Venice: An Imaginary View of the Arsenale 1840

Sea and Sky 1835

Brighton Shore, Looking West 1824

A Harpooned Whale 1845

Beach, (English Coast) 1835

(Flint Castle) 1834

Sketchbook and Loose Papers

Admission is to the entire Mystic Seaport Museum… its village, exhibitions, shipyard and vessels.

And if you stay overnight and are as fortunate as we were to have a brisk sunny day you might just want to find a spot to walk the shore and enjoy the scenery.

The Turner Watercolor Exhibit continues at the Mystic Seaport Museum until Sunday, 23 February, 2020. 

#jmwturner,  #mysticseaportmuseum