Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals at the Tate Britain
From November 27, 2025, to April 12, 2026, the Tate Britain presents the first major exhibition to explore the intertwined lives and legacies of Britain’s most revered landscape artists: JMW Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837)
Source: Tate Britain · Image: JMW Turner, “The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834”, 1835. Cleveland Museum of Art. Bequest of John L. Severance 1942.647; John Constable, “The White Horse”, 1819. The Frick Collection, New York.
Radically different painters and personalities, each challenged artistic conventions of the time, developing ways of picturing the world which still resonate today. Staged across the 250th anniversary years of their births, this exhibition will trace the development of their careers in parallel, revealing the ways they were celebrated, criticised and pitted against each other, and how this pushed them to new and original artistic visions. It will feature over 170 paintings and works on paper, from Turner’s momentous 1835 The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, lent by Cleveland Museum of Art and not seen in Britain for over a century, to The White Horse 1819, one of Constable’s greatest artistic achievements, last exhibited in London two decades ago.
Born only a year apart – Turner in London’s crowded metropolis and Constable to a prosperous family in the Suffolk village of East Bergholt – their contrasting early lives will begin the exhibition. Turner was a commercially minded, fast-rising young star who first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790 aged just 15, and created ambitious oil paintings like recently-discovered The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St. Vincent’s Rock, Bristol, before he turned 18. By contrast, largely self-taught Constable undertook sketching tours to create early watercolours like Bow Fell, Cumberland 1807 and demonstrated a fierce commitment to perfecting artistic techniques, not exhibiting at the Royal Academy until 1802. Having both emerged amid an explosion in popularity of landscape art, the two were united however, in their desire to change it for the better.
The exhibition will explore how both artists developed distinct artistic identities within the competitive world of landscape art, spotlighting their methods, evolution and overlap. Constable built his reputation on the Suffolk landscapes of his childhood, opting to sketch in oils outside amid the vast views of Dedham Vale and the river Stour, which often recurred in his work. Tate Britain will include his painting box and sketching chair, with visitors able to chart the development of Constable’s skilful draughtsmanship and radical handling of paint to add ‘sparkle’. A group of Constable’s cloud studies will be brought together for the exhibition. Reflective of his belief that the sky was key to the emotional impact of a painting they are now one of the most celebrated aspects of his output and underpinned the powerful skyscapes in the artist’s monumental six-foot canvases. Late works such as Hampstead Heath with a Rainbow 1836 will illustrate his deft interweaving of personal and historic memories.
