Exhibition showcases JMW Turner's 'lasting appeal'

JMW Turner painted The Wreck Buoy in 1849

An exhibition by an artist widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest landscape painters opens later in Liverpool.

For the next four months, the Walker Art Gallery will feature the work of JMW Turner and his enduring impact on later generations.

It will include National Museums Liverpool's collection of Turner's oil paintings as well as works on paper and prints. They will be displayed alongside modern and contemporary pieces examining the themes of travel, landscapes and artistic experimentation.

Dr Melissa Gustin, curator of British art at National Museums Liverpool, said the Turner: Always Contemporary exhibition was a "hugely exciting opportunity to reconsider" its Turner collection.

She said it would showcase "the treasures in our collection and explore how Turner's work has always been challenging, exciting and contemporary for audiences in Britain and around the world".

The gallery said several "important and influential artworks" from across the UK feature in the exhibition, ranging from work by Maggi Hambling and Jeff Koons to paintings by Annie Swynnerton and George Frederick Watts.

Visitors will encounter pieces bringing together 250 years of art to "examine Turner's timeless appeal".

Prints by British artist Emma Stibbon, recently acquired by National Museums Liverpool, will also be displayed.

The gallery said the exhibition offered "a new perspective on Turner and his legacy, highlighting how he grappled with issues that remain relevant today: climate change; immigration; tourism; and the role of the artist".

It said visitors would encounter pieces by Claude Monet, Bridget Riley, Ethel Walker and many more, bringing together 250 years of art to "examine Turner's timeless appeal".

Walker Art Gallery said Turner, who died in 1851, captured the "power and changeability of the sea in a remarkable way, and it is perhaps for his immediately recognisable seascapes that he is most renowned".

The exhibition charts the artist's changing painting practice, moving from calm coasts in watercolour to raging storms in oil.