Acknowledged as one of the greatest landscape artists of all time, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) knew Oxford extremely well. From childhood, he made numerous drawings and watercolours of the streets and colleges and the picturesque views surrounding the city. His celebrated oil painting of the High Street, Oxford is on display in the 19th-Century Art Gallery,
To mark the 250th anniversary of J.W.W. Turner's birth on 23 April 1775, explore this selection of his depictions of Oxford from the Ashmolean's collections.
The Museum's Western Art Print Room houses just over 100 watercolours and drawings by Turner, as well as many landscape etchings. There are lively studies of animals, birds and fish, as well as evocative views of places that the artist visited on his travels in Britain and Europe, from Margate to Venice.
