Fun facts and further resources

• Turner was known for his wild and stormy seas, but have you seen his delicate watercolour studies of wildlife?
• A list of possible remedies for troublesome bowels was found in one of his sketchbooks.
• He was a secret sketcher. Turner’s nudes were originally believed to be burned by John Ruskin in a fit of embarrassed Victorian censorship. But in 2005, Turner scholar Ian Warrell discovered that these drawings that were allegedly destroyed were actually hidden away deep within the Tate archives. Check out a few of them here.
• The Turner Prize, a contemporary art award that was set up in 1984 to celebrate new developments in contemporary art, was named after Turner because he had wanted to establish a prize for young artists. Turner was controversial in his own day, and the same certainly goes for many of the Turner Prize nominees.
• Want to test your knowledge of Turner and the other artists of his time? See if you can match Turner with his contemporaries in this picture quiz.
• How was Turner’s world influenced by the weather? Find out over on the blog and take an Art Maps challenge.

Learn more about Turner’s life and work

• View a detailed biography for J.M.W. Turner
• Browse Tate's extensive chronology of J.M.W. Turner’s life
• Explore his drawings, sketchbooks and watercolours thematically, chronologically and by subject in the Tate online catalogue

For teachers

• Download The Unknown Turner teachers’ pack [PDF 330 Kb] which explores who Turner was, how he was affected by events of his lifetime and the work he produced
• Download this Turner and Venice teachers’ resource [PDF 85 Kb] which examines the importance of the Italian city in the work of Turner and the theme of travel in art
• Get young pupils to interact with Turner’s everyday elements in his work with our Discovering Turner game
• Get crafty and inspire young students to create their own sunset boxes