Galleries - August 2022

his finished canvases and evolving creative process, while providing invaluable insight into the man and particularly his attitude to and relationships with women. Turner’s initial studies of the female form were those he made as a student at the life class in the Royal Academy Schools. His later academic-style “life drawings” suggest that he was inspired by, or worked with, the women with whom he had close relationships. The exhibition contains images that scholars have suggested are of the artist’s lovers including Sophia Booth. References to his sexual adventures overseas form part of Turner’s wider compulsion to record his experiences on the Continent. Datable to his early travels abroad are Turner’s most graphically sexual images using figures or narratives associated with classical or mythological subjects, such as nymphs and satyrs. Later, such sexual adventures could prompt imaginative drawings in which Turner explored the wider cultural references they invoked. JMW Turner, A Sleeping Woman, Perhaps Mrs Booth, 94 x 114 mm Credit: Tate Throughout his career Turner drew interior scenes, particularly when he stayed at large country houses such as Farnley Hall, East Cowes Castle and Petworth House. In studies made at the latter location, women populate views of private areas of the house, in particular they are shown in the elegant bedrooms, or their presence is alluded to by empty beds with suggestively crumpled sheets. The artist’s sketchbooks also include scenes populated by other-worldly figures intimated by worked blots of wet watercolour. Here Turner’s explorations of indistinct, ethereal or ghostly female forms also relate to his highly idiosyncratic late work. In this respect they represent the counterpoint to the women in formal classical poses he observed at the outset of his career and are part of a Romantic aspect of his oeuvre. Between the Sheets represents a unique opportunity for the public to see Turner’s private, erotic, small-scale work in an equally intimate environment – the exhibition space is in the smaller bedroom of the house Turner himself designed. Open from Saturday 9 th July until Sunday 30th October 2022, Wednesday to Sunday 10am to 4pm. Prebooking is essential via turnershouse.org. Turner’s House, Sandycombe Lodge, 40 Sandycoombe Road, St Margarets, Twickenham TW1 2LR.