Announced as this autumn’s blockbuster, Turner and The Masters is a real crowd-pleaser, showcasing one of Britain’s (and the world’s) greatest painters JMW Turner and the great Old Masters locked in mortal combat. With loans from such various collections as Museo del Prado in Madrid, Washington, Williamston, Tokyo, as well as Her Majesty’s, the curators, our own Professor David Solkin and Philippa Simpson, did a tremendous job, by putting together some pieces that have not hung alongside each other since they were first exhibited.

The exhibition demonstrates the importance to Turner’s artistic career of challenge and competition with the titans of the past as well as his talented contemporaries. It does so in a fairly straightforward and didactic way, however this is evidently the right way to achieve this goal. The viewer is carefully guided through different motifs Turner took up in his artistic practice; the curators point out the influences on his work and how they were brought into accordance, effectively stimulating and nurturing what we now recognize as Turner’s signature style.

Walking through the rooms, and marveling at Turner’s versatility, it is highly fascinating to spot the ways in which he made even a close copy or a companion piece look different, fresh and unmistakably his. I wish it was possible to show the public some of the canvases, such as companion pieces with Willem van de Velde or Canaletto, without the labels, and first have them decide which ones they like best. This is a game you may want play with your art-indifferent boyfriend from LSE.

The show also plausibly delivers the idea of Turner’s competition with the masters not only as a deeply personal issue, but also as a method of self-promotion in aid of commercial success and professional recognition. In a sense, Turner was a Pop artist of his time. Francis Ford Coppola said that art depends on luck and talent. JMW Turner was lucky and talented enough for his art to live through the centuries and his legacy to continue, as the Tuner Prize 2009 show just up the stairs boldly asserts.

Until Jan 31

JEVGENIJA RAVCOVA