Welcome to the Clore galleries. This part of Tate Britain contains works of art from the Turner Bequest: a vast array of paintings, prints and drawings left to the nation by one of Britain’s greatest artists, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)

This room is called Introducing Turner. It provides an overview of Turner’s career and its historical context, as well as the development of his reputation among artists, writers and critics. The displays in the rest of the Clore galleries explore particular aspects of Turner’s work. Some focus on specific types of subject matter, while others look at broader themes, such as Turner’s travels. Other rooms show Turner’s paintings in the context of work by contemporary and earlier artists. In Exhibiting Turner, room T7, Turner’s paintings are displayed alongside work by artists with whom he competed for attention on the walls of the Royal Academy.

Turner’s evocative depictions of atmospheric conditions contributed substantially to the new appreciation of landscape painting at the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, these displays also demonstrate Turner’s astonishing range of subject matter and styles, from elaborate mythological tales or dramatic contemporary events, to a tragic vision of the vanity of human effort in the face of the awesome power of nature.

This display has been devised by curator Ian Warrell and Chloe Johnson

BP British Art Displays 1500-2007