The Turner Connection
JMW Turner (1775-1851) is one of the best-known and most prolific British artists. In 2005 his painting The Fighting Temeraire was voted the British people's favourite painting.
He first visited Margate at the age of 11 when his parents sent him to school in Love Lane in the Old Town. He returned to Margate to sketch when he was 21 and by the 1830s he had become a regular visitor. He stayed at the lodging house of Mrs Sophia Booth close to the harbour, a few metres from Droit House and overlooking Margate Bay. He returned again and again, even calling himself 'Mr Booth' after the death of his landlady's husband.
The unique quality of the light drew Turner back to Margate leading him to remark to John Ruskin, the writer, poet and critic, that "...the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe". More than a hundred of his works, including some of his most famous seascapes, were inspired by the East Kent coast.
Turner was a pioneering artist who challenged contemporary views on art. His work often captured the mood or impression of an event or landscape rather than depicting a representation of reality. Critics accused him of representing "nothing that ever existed in nature, and scarcely anything that the most distorted imagination ever conceived without it." Today Turner's works are enjoyed and praised, even if their true meaning remains fluid and difficult to grasp.
Turner was a prolific and influential artist. In 1984 the Tate Gallery established the prestigious Turner Prize, in part because Turner had wished to establish an award for artists and in part because it is important to recognise the contribution that younger artists make.
Droit House, Margate Harbour