What is Turner 250?

Turner 250 is a year-long festival of special exhibitions and events to mark 250 years since the birth of painter JMW Turner. Whether visiting museums and galleries or tuning in on TV and online, everyone will have the chance to enjoy Turner’s greatest works, learn about his incredible life and career, and discover the many ways he continues to inspire creativity today.

Born on 23 April 1775, Turner is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential British artist of all time. From humble beginnings, he travelled the length and breadth of the country to capture its dramatic scenery, redefining landscape painting in the process. Today he remains a touchstone of British cultural life – the face on the £20 note – and the painter behind some of the most iconic images of the natural world ever created.

Explore just some of the exhibitions, displays, films, publications and events taking place around Britain and beyond.

What's on

Discover...

What's on at Tate

Highlights of the Turner Bequest

Display at Tate Britain, London

Ongoing

Tate Britain’s Clore Gallery offers a permanent free display of around 100 Turner works.

Becoming an Artist: JMW Turner

Tate Kids

Launching May 2025

Tate Kids, the online art destination for 5 to 12 year olds, hosts a series of animated videos called Becoming an Artist. The next will introduce Turner, following the artist on his travels around the world.

Turner and Constable

Exhibition at Tate Britain, London

27 November 2025 – 12 April 2026

This exhibition will bring together Britain’s two most famous artistic rivals. Turner and Constable both transformed landscape painting, investing it with new layers of meaning and emotion.

In partnership with LVMH. Supported by James Bartos. With additional support from The Turner and Constable Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate Americas Foundation and Tate Members.

JMW Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Launching November 2025

Over 20 years in the making, Tate’s comprehensive online catalogue of the Turner Bequest’s 37,500 sketches, drawings and watercolours will be completed in 2025 and available to all for free.

Supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Meet the Artist: JMW Turner

Tate Publishing

Publishing November 2025

Meet the Artist is a series of books by Tate Publishing which introduce children to key artists through hands-on activities. A new edition of Meet the Artist: JMW Turner will be published to coincide with Turner 250.

Exploring Turner’s Legacy

Tate Britain, London

December 2025

Leading experts and curators from around the world will gather at Tate Britain for this conference on Turner’s work, including an array of panel events, presentations and exhibition tours.

Supported by The Manton Foundation Fund for Historic British Art Scholarship and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Back to menu

Ticketed exhibitions in the UK

JMW Turner and Changing Visions of Landscape

Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich

Open until 23 February 2025

This exhibition brings together, for the first time ever, four of Turner’s paintings of the Bridges at Walton. Each gives a completely different character to this one location.

Romance to Realities: The Northern Landscape and Shifting Identities

Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle

Open until 26 April 2025

For centuries the landscapes of the North of England and Scotland have fascinated artists. This exhibition touches on more than 200 years of these landscapes, including Turner’s exquisite watercolour Inverness.

Turner’s Kingdom: Beauty, Birds and Beasts

Turner’s House, Twickenham

23 April – 26 October 2025

Turner’s House is the only remaining home designed by the artist himself, offering a personal insight into his life and work. In 2025, it will stage a new exhibition focusing of his portrayals of birds and animals.

Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter

Harewood House, Leeds

2 May – 19 October 2025

The work of two legendary artistic figures, both born in 1775, will be illuminated in this exhibition exploring their relationship to English country houses and landscapes at a time of great social change.

Impressions in Watercolour: Turner and his Contemporaries

The Holburne Museum, Bath

23 May – 31 August 2025

This will be a rare opportunity to see some of Turner’s finest watercolours from a private collection. The exhibition will showcase Turner at his most experimental, alongside the work of his contemporaries.

Turner’s Vision at Petworth

Petworth House, Sussex

21 June – 16 November 2025

Turner is Petworth’s most celebrated artist. In 2025, for the first time in 20 years, a wide range of his studies of the Petworth landscape will be exhibited in the very place that inspired him.

Turner: Always Contemporary

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

25 October 2025 – 22 February 2026

This exhibition will explore Turner’s enduring impact on later generations of artists, featuring Turner's oil paintings, works on paper and prints, alongside modern and contemporary artworks.

Back to menu

Free exhibitions and displays in the UK

Turner in Public Collections

Art UK

Hundreds of paintings by Turner can be found in public collections across the UK. Art UK offers you the chance to see all these and more via their free online database, featuring over 600 of the artist’s works.

Land Sea Sky: Ingrid Pollard, JMW Turner & Vija Celmins

The Box, Plymouth

Open until 12 January 2025

See the work of three artists who, although working more than 200 years apart, are connected through their close observation of nature and skilful use of materials.

In partnership with ARTIST ROOMS, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland.

Shields, on the River Tyne

South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, South Shields

Open until 23 January 2025

This exhibition spotlights a mezzotint print of Turner’s iconic watercolour, Shields, on the River Tyne, giving visitors an insight into the South Shields riverside area in the early 19th century.

Turner in January: Ireland’s Vaughan Bequest

Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

1 – 31 January 2025

Every January, Edinburgh and Dublin stage a free display of Turner watercolours from the Vaughan Bequest. 2025 will see the 31 works from Ireland shown at the Royal Scottish Academy building for the first time.

JMW Turner: In Light and Shade

The Whitworth, Manchester

7 February 2025 – 2 November 2025

For the first time in over 100 years, see Turner’s most ambitious series of landscape engravings – his Liber Studiorum ­– displayed in its entirety, alongside some of his most admired watercolours.

Turner’s Waves Breaking on A Lee Shore at Margate

Turner Contemporary, Margate

Opening in April 2025

This atmospheric painting of the Margate coast will be shown at Turner Contemporary, the gallery built on the site of the boarding house where Turner stayed during his regular visits to the town.

NG200: The Wonder of Art

The National Gallery, London

Opening on 10 May 2025

Turner’s works will form a key part of the upcoming redisplay of the National Gallery collection, celebrating the Gallery’s own 200th birthday with more art on display than ever before.

Turner Prize 2025

Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford

27 September 2025 – 25 January 2026

Named in honour of Turner, the Turner Prize is one of the best-known visual arts awards in the world. The 2025 exhibition will be held at Cartwright Hall as a highlight of Bradford’s year as UK City of Culture.

Shadowscapes: Turner and Quantum

Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham

Opening in September 2025

Dr Libby Heaney, award-winning artist with a PhD in Quantum Information Science, will create a new immersive work displayed alongside Turner’s sketches and paintings.

Turner’s The Battle of Trafalgar

Queen’s House, Greenwich

Planned opening on 21 October 2025

Turner’s largest painting and only royal commission will be going back on free public display in the Queen’s House art gallery. This new display is planned to coincide with Trafalgar Day on 21 October.

Back to menu

Talks, activities and events in the UK

Celebrating Turner 250: Easter Holidays

Windsor Castle

5–23 April 2025, Wednesdays to Sundays

To coincide with Turner’s 250th birthday in April, visitors to Windsor Castle will be able to get creative with some Turner-inspired arts and crafts throughout the local Easter school holidays.

The 45th Kurt Pantzer Memorial Lecture

The Turner Society

16 April 2025

Marking its own 50th anniversary in 2025, the Turner Society champions wide-ranging interest in Turner’s work and times. Its annual Kurt Pantzer lecture will be given by Professor Leo Costello.

Ocean Summit

Turner Contemporary, Margate

11–12 July 2025

This summit will showcase ways in which art can serve as a powerful tool for raising awareness, inspiring action, and fostering a deeper connection to the natural world.

Back to menu

Films and publications

Turner Unseen: The Secret Life of a Radical Genius

BBC Two and BBC iPlayer

2025, launch date TBC

This new film produced by Passion Pictures for BBC Arts will offer a revelatory look at Britain’s most famous artist. It will unlock Turner’s life and ideas through Tate’s collection of his sketches and watercolours.

JMW Turner’s ‘The Battle of Trafalgar’: Commemoration and Controversy

National Maritime Museum

Publishing in March 2025

This book will explore the fascinating history of Turner’s The Battle of Trafalgar. It will chart the painting’s tumultuous journey, from the controversy of its unveiling to its eventual place in a national art collection.

Mr Turner

BFI Southbank, London

April 2025

Mike Leigh’s award-winning film about Turner will be given a special screening at BFI Southbank. This cinematic account of the artist’s later years is a luminous tribute to the master of light.

Back to menu

International exhibitions

Dialogues with Turner

Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai

Open until 10 May 2025

This exhibition presents paintings from Tate’s collection which chart Turner’s journey from depicting scenic landscapes to evoking the elemental power of nature at its most dramatic.

Turner’s Watercolours: Scotland’s Vaughan Bequest

National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

1 – 31 January 2025

Every January, Dublin and Edinburgh stage a free display of Turner watercolours from the Vaughan Bequest. 2025 will see the 38 works from Scotland shown at the National Gallery of Ireland for the first time.

JMW Turner: Watercolour Horizons

Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati

1 March – 15 June 2025

For the first time, all 12 Turner watercolours from the Taft Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Art Museum will be brought together. The exhibition will feature views from across Europe.

JMW Turner: Romance and Reality

Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven

29 March – 27 July 2025

Romance and Reality will showcase the Yale Centre for British Art’s rich holdings of Turner’s work, including some of his most acclaimed oil paintings, outstanding watercolours and prints.

Back to menu

Explore more Turner

Artwork
Close