Exhibition Review: Towner Eastbourne presents Impressions in Watercolour: J.M.W. Turner and his Contemporaries

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), better known as J. M. W. Turner, is widely hailed as one of Britain’s greatest and most influential artists. Alongside his celebrated contemporary — and lifelong rival — John Constable, Turner reshaped the course of landscape painting. Born just a year apart, the two came from markedly different backgrounds, yet shared a determination to elevate the landscape genre and redefine how the natural world could be seen.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Sarner See, c.1844. Private Collection. Photo © Fisheye Images

As Tate Britain prepares to open a major exhibition devoted to these two giants, another institution is marking a significant Turner milestone. To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Turner’s birth, the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne, East Sussex, is turning the spotlight not on the oil paintings for which he is best known, but on the medium that shaped his early career and remained central throughout his life: watercolour.

The Towner exhibition, “Impressions in Watercolour: J. M. W. Turner and His Contemporaries”, running until 12 April 2026, brings together an exceptional selection of Turner’s watercolours alongside works by artists from the flourishing British watercolour tradition of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It offers a rare opportunity to see how Turner, even in his youth, pushed watercolour far beyond topographical accuracy towards the atmospheric, luminous effects that would come to define his mature style.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Mount Pilatus from across the Lake of Lucerne, c.1844.
Private Collection. Photo © Fisheye Images

Turner’s story is one of ambition and relentless curiosity. From modest beginnings, he travelled widely — across Britain and throughout Europe, from the Swiss Alps to the Italian lakes and the banks of the Rhine — seeking dramatic vistas and shifting weather that could challenge and expand his artistic vision. In doing so, he redefined landscape painting as something poetic, emotional and profoundly modern.

J. M. W. Turner’s watercolours are presented alongside those of his notable contemporaries, highlighting Turner at his most experimental and expressive through a selection of his landscape and seascape works.
Photo courtesy of Towner Eastbourne.

Today, Turner remains a cornerstone of British cultural identity — immortalised on the £20 note and revered as the creator of some of the most iconic depictions of sea, sky and light ever painted. The Eastbourne exhibition is a timely reminder that his genius was not forged in oil alone, but also in the shimmering, transparent delicacy of watercolour — the medium through which he first learned to capture the world anew.

Visitors from the South Sussex coastal towns will be delighted to find works depicting familiar landscapes. Turner created many pieces for the Sussex esquire John Fuller (1757–1834), including Pevensey Bay from Crowhurst Park (1816), an etching on paper showing sweeping views over Bexhill — a stone’s throw from Eastbourne — from the elevated vantage point of the Pelham family estate, with the Eastbourne headland visible in the distance.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, A boat near a buoyu in a rough sea, c.1830.
Private Collection. Photo © Fisheye Images

Interpretive notes accompanying the displays highlight Turner’s relationships with other significant artists of the period, whose watercolours — drawn from the Towner Collection — are showcased alongside his own. Their inclusion demonstrates the dynamism of the British watercolour movement during this era.

Among the key figures is John Robert Cozens (1752–1797), a British Romantic watercolourist whose atmospheric style greatly influenced the next generation, including Turner. By 1794, as Cozens’ health declined, his physician and patron Dr Thomas Monro employed young artists such as Thomas Girtin and Turner to copy Cozens’ compositions. Girtin sketched the outlines; Turner washed in the colour and effects. The two young artists, close in age and modest in background, became friends and even shared a studio, though their careers diverged — Turner advancing through the Royal Academy, while Girtin pursued a more commercial path under the tutelage of Edward Dayes (1763–1804). Girtin is often credited, alongside Turner, with transforming watercolour into a medium of grandeur and atmosphere. His Windsor Park and Castle (c. 1796–98), viewed from the Thames, is among the notable works represented.

The exhibition also includes works by Louis Thomas Francia (1772–1839), a French émigré who joined Girtin’s Sketching Society and, upon returning to Calais, tutored the prodigiously talented Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828). Other contemporaries represented include David Cox (1783–1859), known for fresh, spontaneous studies and loose, textural brushwork; Peter de Wint (1784–1849), celebrated for his warm, luminous English landscapes; and a strong line-up of later practitioners such as Amy Reeve-Fowkes (1896–1968), Alfred Rich (1856–1921), Albert Goodwin (1845–1932), Frank Dobson (1867–1963), Thomas Bush Hardy (1842–1897), Henry Hine (1811–1895), George Clarkson Stanfield (1828–1878) and Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (1787–1855).

From Sussex itself, the exhibition features Harold Swanwick (1866–1929), who settled in the village of Wilmington near Eastbourne and found inspiration in the South Downs and its farming communities. His works sit alongside local scenes from Eastbourne, Alfriston, Seaford and Brighton — images that will charm residents of the south coast.

Also represented is Charles Knight (1901–1990), who lived and worked in Brighton and played a key role in the artistic community of Ditchling. His watercolour style was shaped by John Sell Cotman (1782–1842) of the Norwich School, whose own works, including the highly prized Trees near the River Greta (1805), appear in the exhibition. Cotman’s simplified forms and muted harmonies anticipate modernist sensibilities.

Through this exceptional range of works, the exhibition traces Turner’s artistic development from a topographical draughtsman — producing precise architectural and landscape views, as was common in late 18th-century Britain — to a visionary experimenter. By the 1790s, he was already demonstrating remarkable technical skill, often depicting ruins, castles and sweeping landscapes influenced by picturesque and Romantic ideals. Throughout his career he filled dozens of sketchbooks with watercolour studies, many later serving as the basis for oil paintings. His watercolours of the 1820s and 1830s are widely regarded as his mature period, marked by atmospheric luminosity and techniques — thin washes, wet-on-wet blending, minimal outlines — that anticipated Impressionism. In his later years, his watercolours became increasingly abstract, helping fuel a vibrant British watercolour movement stretching across several generations.

“Impressions in Watercolour: J. M. W. Turner and His Contemporaries” is organised by the Holburne Museum in Bath, which this year published a book of the same name with Pallas Athene, featuring an extended essay by Turner scholar Ian Warrell - curator of the exhibition - examining the works and the artists who shaped Turner’s world.

Many of the pieces on display come from a private collection assembled by Sir Hickman Bacon (1855–1945), a baronet who acquired a remarkable number of Turner’s sketches, helping preserve some of the artist’s most intimate works for posterity.

Towner Eastbourne is hosting a number of events including panel discussions, tours and courses to enhance a deeper experience of the exhibition. 

Photos courtesy of Towner Eastbourne.