Turner blockbuster to melt winter chill - ABC Online

Updated December 07, 2012 10:11:21

The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) will host a winter art blockbuster of works by British landscape artist Joseph Mallord William Turner.

Turner, whose paintings have travelled to Canberra before, was often dubbed the painter of light, and many of his sketches and watercolours hang in Britain's Tate Gallery.

But from June to September next year, key works will go on show in the capital in an exhibition called Turner from the Tate: The Making of a Master.

It is the gallery's first winter international blockbuster in 10 years, and is expected to be a highlight of the Centenary of Canberra celebrations.

NGA director Ron Radford says more than 240,000 people queued to see the works of the British master at the gallery's last solo Turner exhibition.

"We had a popular Turner exhibition in 1996," Mr Radford said.

"We think it's a wonderful opportunity during the centenary year to have a very different Turner exhibition, knowing that it will be very popular and knowing it will be well supported by Canberra.

"There's only a handful of works that were here in '96. It's a completely different exhibition and it's going to South Australia first.

"The Tate have been very generous and allowed it to go to two venues."

Mr Radford says the NGA is taking a risk by hosting a major exhibition in the middle of winter, and so soon after a major summer exhibition, which will feature the works of French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

"To be frank, it is a risk. But we think if you're going to take a risk, the centenary year is the time to take it," he said.

"We're going to take the opportunity when people come to Toulouse-Lautrec to advertise the Turner exhibition in the gallery."

Topics: art-history, library-museum-and-gallery, canberra-2600, act

First posted December 07, 2012 08:02:31