Turner’s English Coasts focuses on Turner’s engagement with English marine and coastal subjects at a pivotal time in his career when he was living at Sandycombe Lodge, the house he designed and lived in between 1813 to 1826, at Sandycoombe Road, St Margarets, Twickenham TW1 2LR. 

Guest-curator Christine Riding has deliberately selected works which underline the close relationship between Turner’s images of maritime Britain and contemporary print culture. The exhibition includes projects financed by professional engravers and publishers to those instigated by Turner himself. Some were commercially successful (the finished watercolours in the exhibition were and still are highly desirable to art collectors), while others were personal experiments. Crucially, it was through such projects – unprecedented in their breadth and quality – that Turner was to achieve an international reputation.