Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 - 1851). Joseph Mallord William Turner was an English Romantic painter, printmaker, and watercolorist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest landscape painters in the history of Western art and is known for his innovative use of light, color, and atmosphere in his works. Turner was born in London and showed an early talent for art. He entered the Royal Academy of Arts when he was just 14 years old and quickly gained recognition for his watercolor paintings. In his early career, Turner focused on topographical and architectural subjects, but he later became known for his dramatic and atmospheric landscapes. Turner's paintings often featured natural elements such as the sea, sky, and mountains, and he was particularly interested in capturing the effects of light and weather on the landscape. He was known for his innovative use of color and his ability to create a sense of movement and energy in his works. Some of Turner's most famous paintings include The Fighting Temeraire, Rain, Steam and Speed, and The Slave Ship. He was also a prolific printmaker, producing thousands of prints throughout his career. Turner was a controversial figure in his time, with some critics praising his innovative techniques and others finding his work too radical. However, his influence on the development of modern art is undeniable, and he is now widely regarded as one of the greatest painters of the Romantic era.oseph Mallord William Turner, known contemporarily as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colourisations, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower middle-class family. He lived in London all his life, retaining his Cockney accent and assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame. A child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which due to his troubled, contrary nature, were often begrudgingly accepted. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828, although he was viewed as profoundly inarticulate. He traveled to Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks. Intensely private, eccentric and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Eveline and Georgiana, by his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father, after which his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He had been championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on 23 April 1775 and baptised on 14 May. He was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, in London, England. His father, William Turner, was a barber and wig maker. His mother, Mary Marshall, came from a family of butchers. A younger sister, Mary Ann, was born in September 1778 but died in August 1783. Turner's mother showed signs of mental disturbance from 1785 and was admitted to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in Old Street in 1799 and was moved in 1800 to Bethlem Hospital, a mental asylum, where she died in 1804. Turner was sent to his maternal uncle, Joseph Mallord William Marshall, in Brentford, then a small town on the banks of the River Thames west of London. The earliest known artistic exercise by Turner is from this period, a series of simple colourings of engraved plates from Henry Boswell's Picturesque View of the Antiquities of England and Wales.