London Culture Scene Honors Turner's Forgotten Old Age

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British painter JMW Turner is the star of London's cultural scene again with a major exhibition that opened Wednesday, a rare auction of his works and an upcoming biopic.

The exhibition "Late Turner: Painting Set Free" at Tate Britain is the first major show dedicated to the last productive and creatively experimental years of the painter's life between his 60th birthday in 1835 and his death in 1851.

Misunderstood by critics of the time, Joseph Mallord William Turner "created the most startling pieces during this period," said Sam Smiles, co-curator of the exhibition.

"But for whatever reason a major exhibition on Turner's later years has not been done before. It's a missing exhibition."

A total of 180 oil paintings, watercolors and sketches of Britain and from his foreign travels feature in the show, illustrating an aesthetic based on the play of light by this leading figure in English romanticism.

The show's highlight is a series of paintings from his travels around continental Europe between 1835 and 1845, particularly in Italy with spectacular depictions of Rome and Venice.

It also features the famous seascapes in which sea and sky melt into one -- a strikingly contemporary vision that is part abstract, part finely-observed detail.

The artist frequently stayed on the Kent coast, a reflection of his "lifelong fascination for the sea", said David Blayney Brown, the exhibition's other curator.

Among the exhibits are the painter's belongings, from sketchbooks to palettes and even the glasses he sometimes used for painting.

There are also many watercolors and unfinished oil paintings, a variety that shows the artist's constant will to innovate even as an elderly man.

Turner "was continuously innovating, staying sharp and controversial," Smiles said.

The exhibition will run until January 25, 2015. It will then move to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles from February 24 to May 24, then the M.H. De Young museum in San Francisco from June 20 to September 20.

As the exhibition opened, a rarely-seen 1836 masterpiece entitled "Rome, view of the Aventine" was put up for auction on December 3 at Sotheby's.

Estimated to sell at £15 million to £20 million (18.7 million to 25 million euros), the masterpiece is "one of the very finest", said Alex Bell, joint international head and co-chairman of Sotheby's Old Master Paintings Department.

The Romantic painter's last 25 years are also the subject of a new film by Mike Leigh coming out next month at the London film festival and in cinemas around Britain on October 31.

The film has already won Timothy Spall the prize for best actor at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

Spall's performance portrays the image of a scruffy man unable to express his feelings in words but also a visionary artist considered a master of light.

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