Oil paint on canvas
Sussex, East
Sussex - non-specific
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on loan
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Brighton Beach with Chain Pier in Distance West
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
architecture
beach
boat, sailing
Brighton, Chain Pier
England
England, South East
England, Southern
pier
places
sea
seafront
seascapes and coasts
society
Sussex - non-specific
Sussex, East
townscapes / man-made features
transport: water
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
<p>The sea and sky were both worked in first with unmodified oil paint. The sky was developed with thin broken washes of opaque paint, called scumbles. Turner worked up the buildings with paint applied with a palette knife, then smoothed it with a brush. Elsewhere he thinned the paint considerably, probably with oil of turpentine. This evaporates to give matte paint, necessarily in a thin layer, which contrasts with the naturally glossier unthinned paint used to make impasto (texture). The process took several days, since the impasted paint overlies partially-dried paint.</p><p>Years later, the sky was damaged in Turner’s studio, perhaps by water or even rain, and some paint flaked off. Turner reworked the sky with bodied paint – that is, paint that retains impasto, perhaps a megilp – using yellow barium chromate, not available before 1843. He used the end of his brush to enliven the surface, leaving characteristic straight marks in the paint.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2010</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
1 July 2002 – 20 March 2005
2005-03-20
1 July 2002 – 20 March 2005
2005-03-20
2002-07-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-01
Turner and the Modern World
Collection based display
1 June 2007 – 15 March 2009
2009-03-15
1 June 2007
2007-06-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-06-01
Interrupted Visions: Oil Sketches 1820s-1840s
Collection based display
20 March 2009 – 27 July 2009
2009-07-27
20 March 2009
2009-03-20
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-03-20
Turner's Later Oil Sketches and Unfinished Works
Collection based display
14 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
14 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
2009-08-14
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-14
Exploring Technique
Collection based display
14 April 2012 – 27 March 2013
2013-03-27
14 April 2012 – 27 March 2013
2013-03-27
2012-04-14
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-14
Constable / Turner
Collection based display
1 November 2013 – 28 February 2014
2014-02-28
1 November 2013 – 28 February 2014
2014-02-28
2013-11-01
Royal Pavilion & Museums (Brighton, UK)
2013-11-01
Brighton in the 1820s as perceived by Turner and his Contemporaries
Loan-out
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-09-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
6 July 2019 – 2 May 2021
2021-05-02
6 July 2019 – 13 October 2019
2019-10-13
2019-07-06
Kunstmuseum (Luzern, Switzerland)
http://www.kunstmuseumluzern.ch
8 November 2019 – 26 January 2020
2020-01-26
2019-11-08
LWL-Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Westfälisches (Munster, Germany)
http://landesmuseum.lwl.org
20 February 2020 – 7 September 2020
2020-09-07
2020-02-20
Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville, USA)
15 October 2020 – 2 May 2021
2021-05-02
2020-10-15
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (Québec, Canada)
http://www.mnba.qc.ca
2019-07-06
The Sea and the Alps: Turner's Quest for the Sublime
Tate partnerships & programmes
6 April 2020 – 27 November 2022
2022-11-27
6 April 2020
2020-04-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2020-04-06
Clore 105
Collection based display
6 July 2024 – 15 January 2028
2028-01-15
6 July 2024 – 1 September 2024
2024-09-01
2024-07-06
Grimaldi Forum (Monaco, Monaco)
30 September 2024 – 7 May 2025
2025-05-07
2024-09-30
Museum of Art Pudong (Shanghai, China)
21 June 2025 – 5 October 2025
2025-10-05
2025-06-21
Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia)
1 June 2026 – 1 October 2026
2026-10-01
2026-06-01
External
15 November 2026 – 15 March 2027
2027-03-15
2026-11-15
External
1 May 2027 – 1 September 2027
2027-09-01
2027-05-01
External
15 October 2027 – 15 January 2028
2028-01-15
2027-10-15
External
2024-07-06
Turner's Sublime Legacy
Tate partnerships & programmes
Brighton Beach, with the Chain Pier in the Distance, from the West
support: 913 × 1219 × 21 mm
frame: 1070 × 1376 × 85 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<p>The sea and sky were both worked in first with unmodified oil paint. The sky was developed with thin broken washes of opaque paint, called scumbles. Turner worked up the buildings with paint applied with a palette knife, then smoothed it with a brush. Elsewhere he thinned the paint considerably, probably with oil of turpentine. This evaporates to give matte paint, necessarily in a thin layer, which contrasts with the naturally glossier unthinned paint used to make impasto (texture). The process took several days, since the impasted paint overlies partially-dried paint. 
<br/>
<br/>Years later, the sky was damaged in Turner’s studio, perhaps by water or even rain, and some paint flaked off. Turner reworked the sky with bodied paint – that is, paint that retains impasto, perhaps a megilp – using yellow barium chromate, not available before 1843. He used the end of his brush to enliven the surface, leaving characteristic straight marks in the paint.
<br/></p>

Display caption
2010-02-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p>[from]<b> Nos. 453–86: Late Unfinished Sea Pieces, <i>c</i>. 1830–45</b></p>
<p>THERE are two main problems about this group of works. The first is the question of dating: the dates adopted here are highly tentative and are based on the supposition that there is a logical progression from a more substantial, three-dimensional style to one that is more impressionistic and less solid, together with a feeling that Turner's colouring was perhaps at its strongest from the early to the mid 1830s. However, as will be noted, the compilers do not always agree on even the tentative datings given here. In any case, what may look like a less three-dimensional picture may in fact be merely a less finished picture.</p>
<p>The second problem is that of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/provenance" title="Glossary definition for 'Provenance'"><span>provenance</span></a> and authenticity, in particular as it concerns smaller pictures outside the Turner Bequest, Nos. 474–84, together with the somewhat similar works no longer accepted as genuine, Nos. 555–8. That some such unfinished works escaped the Turner Bequest is certain, and a foundation is provided by those works that can be definitely or tentatively traced to John Pound, the son by her first marriage of Mrs Booth, Turner's mistress and housekeeper. In reviews of our first edition, exception was taken to some of our attributions by Luke Herrmann (Nos. 475, 478 and 484) and Jerrold Ziff (Nos. 480 and 481); interestingly, they do not agree. Of the works they doubt, No. 478 seems definitely to have been in the Pound sale at Christie's in 1865, while Nos. 480, 481 and 484 bear labels or are said to come from the Pound family.</p>
<p>However, one should never let an apparently sound provenance stand in the way of one's judgment based on the visual evidence, and in this case there is one further element, the fact that, from 1848, for apparently the only time in his life, Turner employed an assistant, Francis Sherrell. According to Bernard Falk (1938, p. 213), whose reference is based on an obituary in the <i>Isle of Thanet Gazette</i> for 23 September 1916, Turner gave Sherrell lessons in return for various services such as stretching his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvases</span></a> and running errands; John Gage (1969, p. 171) suggests that Sherrell may also have cleaned some of the pictures in Turner's studio at the instigation of the dealer Thomas Griffith, who was active in trying to obtain sales for Turner at this time. Nothing further seems to be known about Sherrell save that he died at Thanet in 1916. It is perhaps an unworthy suspicion to suggest that he, more than anybody else, would have been in a position to imitate Turner's late style and that such imitations could have been left in Turner's studio and acquired by the Pound family.</p>
<p>Another suspicious circumstance is that, although Turner tended to work on standard sizes of canvas, only a few of those of this group of pictures that are outside the Turner Bequest can be matched with works in the Bequest: No. 472, near enough Turner's standard three feet by four feet; No. 474, much the same size as Nos. 457 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-waves-breaking-against-the-wind-n02881" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02881</span></a>] and 458 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-waves-breaking-on-a-lee-shore-at-margate-study-for-rockets-and-blue-lights-n02882" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02882</span></a>]; Nos. 475, 482, and 556a, close to No. 459 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-waves-breaking-on-a-shore-n05495" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05495</span></a>]; and Nos. 483 and 484, the same size as Nos. 485 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-riders-on-a-beach-d36675" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>D36675</span></a>] and 486.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 62; Herrmann 1978, p. 773; Wilton 1979, p. 224; Ziff 1980, p. 167.</p>
<p><b>454. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-brighton-beach-with-the-chain-pier-in-the-distance-from-the-west-n01986" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01986</span></a>]<b> Hastings</b> <i>c.</i> 1830–35</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (1986)</p>
<p>Canvas, 35 1/2 × 48 (91 × 122)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1906.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Amsterdam, Berne, Paris, Brussels, Liege (32), Venice and Rome (36) 1947–8; on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland 1964–8; Edinburgh 1968 (9); R.A. 1974–5 (493).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Rothenstein 1949, p. 12, colour pl. 6.</p>
<p>A variation of the theme of <i>The Chain Pier, Brighton</i> (Nos. 286 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-chain-pier-brighton-n02064" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02064</span></a>] and 291 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-brighton-from-the-sea-t03886" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03886</span></a>]) but more worked up in sea and sky, paralleling the development seen in <i>Staffa—Fingal's Cave</i>, exhibited in 1832, in the subservience of solid forms to the forces of nature (see No. 347). The sky seems to represent a later stage in the development of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> than the rest of the picture.</p>
<p>For MacColl this is ‘Perhaps of the same date as “The New Moon”’, exhibited in 1840 (No. 386 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-new-moon-or-ive-lost-my-boat-you-shant-have-your-hoop-n00526" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00526</span></a>]), but stylistically it seems earlier, as had already been suggested by Finberg, who associated it with some draft verses about</p>
<p>‘The first pale Star of Eve ere Twylight comes’ in the ‘Worcester and Shrewsbury’ sketchbook of <i>c.</i> 1829–30 (CCXXXIX-70). It is just possible that the subject was suggested by Etty's <i>Venus, the Evening Star</i>, exhibited at the R.A. in 1828, but this was a figure subject. More likely is the influence of Bonington, as in the case of the comparable <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> exhibited in 1830, <i>Calais Sands</i> (No. 334, <i>q.v.</i>).</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
architecture beach boat, sailing Brighton, Chain Pier England England, South East England, Southern pier places sea seafront seascapes and coasts society Sussex, East Sussex - non-specific townscapes / man-made features transport: water UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions