Standing in the Sun: A Life of J.M.W. Turner

"A superb biography" Independent



"Standing in the Sun is a pleasure to read" A.S. Byatt



"Bailey writes with flair and imagination, drawing on vivid background material" Sunday Times



"Beautifully written" Sunday Telegraph



"Bailey has presented us with a very fine portrait" Desmond Christy, Guardian



This critically acclaimed portrait of the man behind the art is available in digital form for the first time.



JMW Turner is arguably Britain's greatest and most mysterious painter, whose range of work encompasses seascape and landscape, immensely powerful oil paintings and intimate watercolours. His friend and colleague C.R. Leslie remembered him thus: 'Turner was short and stout, and had a sturdy, sailor-like walk. He might be taken for the captain of a river steamboat at first glance; but a second would find more in his face than belongs in any ordinary mind. There was that peculiar keenness of expression in his eye that is only seen in men of constant habits of observation'.

 

The son of a Covent garden barber and a woman who died in Bethlehem Hospital, Turner achieved fame and fortune during his lifetime. Although he possessed a wide-ranging imagination, he was an often incoherent speaker and writer, and his muddled will produced much discord - it is a wonder that, despite avaricious relatives and incompetent lawyers, so many of his works are now in the hands of the nation, and publicly proclaim his genius.

 

In this biography, Anthony Bailey has drawn upon archival material, scholarly literature and research, as well as studying many of Turner's sketchbooks, paintings and watercolours. Uncovering fresh material, as well as pulling together previously known facts, Bailey sheds new light on this complicated and secretive artistic figure.