Bristol Museum & Art Gallery's urgent fundraising for Turner masterpiece

JMW Turner's The Rising Squall 1792. - courtesy of.Sotheby's

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery has launched an urgent fundraising campaign to acquire a recently rediscovered JMW Turner masterpiece, reports the Museums Association:

'The museum has been attempting to raise £100,000 to buy the work, which was painted in Bristol when the artist was 17 years old. The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent’s Rock, Bristol (1792) will be auctioned on 2 July at Sotheby’s.

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery is raising the money using Crowdfunder, with the hashtag #BringTurnerHome. The Crowdfunder will close at 11.59pm on 1 July.

'Philip Walker, the head of culture for Bristol City Council, with responsibility for Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives, said: “Bristol Museum was given less than three weeks’ notice that the earliest oil painting by JMW Turner of a Bristol scene was going under the hammer.

“We couldn’t let the opportunity go by and have this important work slip through our fingers without a fight.”

Walker said that while the fundraising campaign is fully supported by the council, it will not be funding the acquisition.

“Whilst museums, particularly civic museums, are so stretched financially and councils have no money to be able to contribute towards purchase costs, the entire funding of the acquisition has to be sought from funding outside of the council’s own budgets,” Walker said.

“The days of council’s having pots of funding for such an occasion are long gone, making this task seem even more Herculean.”

'The painting, last exhibited in 1858 in Tasmania, Australia, is believed to be the only oil painting Turner made of Bristol. It shows the Avon Gorge before the Clifton Suspension Bridge was built and was the very first oil he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793, aged just 18.

“With the support of the Bristol Museums Development Trust and the Friends of Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives we knew we could make a start and stand a chance to raise enough funds to be in the running,” Walker said. 

“It’s easy to be complacent and would have been a lot simpler to have discounted it whilst we struggle to keep our other museums open, upkept and publicly accessible.

“But the collections are what make museums – and with so much of the public sector being squeezed, it seems even move vital for museums like Bristol Museum and Art Gallery to be actively seeking to add strength to their collections and to reinforce that Bristol’s collections are an important part of the nation’s heritage.”

“Civic museums support the tourist economy, provide employment, extraordinary educational opportunities and inspire future generations to towards creativity and an appreciation of culture and heritage,” Walker continued.

“We need to be bold and ambitious in times of hardship – and ensure that we continue to develop our collections – in line with our collections policies – and aim high. To bring a lost and forgotten masterpiece into a public collection after it sank into obscurity for over 150 years – is what we as museums should attempt and what Bristol as a city should do.”

'If the museum is able to buy the painting, it will put it on display in August, before travelling to Tate Britain in November for the exhibition, Turner and Constable. The painting will feature in gallery talks, school programmes, university research, and a wider Turner trail for visitors across Bristol.  

'Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, which attracts about 335,000 visitors a year, is owned and run by Bristol City Council, as part of Bristol Cultural and Creative Industries.

'Starting more than 200 years ago as a collection of privately owned artworks and objects, the museum now looks after nearly 2 million objects.'