A masterpiece by one of England’s most famous artists is now on show at Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle where it is expected to attract huge crowds of visitors over the summer.
In the latest coup for the city gallery, J.M.W Turner’s 1839 painting The Fighting Temeraire – classed as one of the nation’s greatest treasures – is on loan here for four months. The painting – capturing the ship of the title amid a gold and orange sunset swirl of sky and sea – was unveiled to the public this Friday, with first day visitors clearly keen to make the most of the occasion.
When the gallery opened that morning there was already a queue forming outside, says Lizzie Jacklin, keeper of art at the Laing and the exhibition’s curator. And then the flow of visitors was constant through the day.
The Laing has been picked to host the artwork as part of a National Treasures partnership scheme with the National Gallery in London which houses it and it is one of 12 venues across the country being loaned an artwork for exhibition this year to help mark the National’s 200-year birthday celebrations.
Turner’s oil painting features HMS Temeraire – which played its part in Lord Nelson’s victory at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar – and shows the retired naval ship’s final journey in 1838 as it was towed along the Thames by a paddle-wheel steam tug, towards its final berth to be broken up for scrap.
The Newcastle gallery has even found a North East link with its new exhibit. While Turner’s steam boat might not be a specific vessel, the real steam tugs – there were two of them, called Samson and London – which pulled the Temeraire were actually manufactured on Tyneside. The Laing is also making the very most of its chance to display the treasure, with a wider exhibition built around it which explores those local industrial links and includes around 25 other Turner works plus more by other artists as well as items such as models of HMS Temeraire and even a small piece of its wood salvaged from the vessel’s break-up.
The exhibition – Turner: Art, Industry & Nostalgia – extends across two rooms, with the extra Turner works – which include sketches – being the focus of the first and enabling visitors to see a broad sweep of the trademark style of the prolific artist said to be the best-loved of the English Romantic painters. Joseph Mallord William Turner, who lived from 1775-1851, depicted a number of North East views during his lifetime and included here are the likes of 1829 scenes of Holy Island and Tynemouth; a watercolour of Dunstanburgh Castle painted in 1798 when he was a young man and a Warkworth sketch from the following year.
The Fighting Temeraire is in the second room; particularly striking next to a ship painting called Peace – Burial at Sea where Turner again combines a scene of steam and sail power, this time with billowing black smoke. Accompanying exhibits include a mix of loans – warship paintings from galleries such as the Tate – and work from the Laing’s own collection, such as River Scene by L.S. Lowry.
Among other featured artists are former Turner Prize nominee Tacita Dean and photographers Chris Killip and John Kippin, with a video by the latter depicting the Tyneside-built Ark Royal leaving the River Tyne for the last time.
Laing’s communications officer Clio Lieberman explains how the exhibition is out to link local history and industry, and north with south, and forging more connections with visitors will be an upcoming programme of events, to include talks by Lizzie and an expert coming up from the National Gallery which are available to book online.
These no doubt will be in demand. The Fighting Temeraire was voted the nation’s favourite painting in a 2005 poll run by BBC Radio 4 and even those who think they don’t know the artwork have probably seen it countless times. Its image features on the back of the £20 bank note, which Lizzie has thought to include in a display case, such is the level of detail and thought involved in the exhibition which she had been working on for around two years.
Eagle-eyed Bond fans may even have spotted a reference to the famous work in 2012 film Skyfall where Daniel Craig is seen to meet the new Q in front of the painting. The exhibition runs until September 7 – with tickets available to buy on the door – to give as many people as possible a chance to see what Julie Milne, chief curator of art galleries at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, calls “one of Turner’s greatest masterpieces.”
For more information about the gallery and what it offers see here.