Water and light

For the first time

Thanks to a special collaboration with the Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven (USA), the Dordrechts Museum will be exhibiting ten works by Joseph Mallord William Turner from 8 February onwards. The works come from the renowned Paul Mellon Collection. This collection has never been seen in the Netherlands before. One of the highlights is the famous painting Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed.

Water & Light

The exhibition presents Turner as the ultimate painter of water. The interplay of water and light was an inexhaustible source of artistic inspiration for Turner. He captured the beauty of picturesque rivers and confronts us with the immense power and dangers of the wild sea. As a painter of modern life during the Industrial Revolution, Turner captured both the beauty and potential as well as the dangers of water. Water as friend and foe.

Nicky Assmann

Turner forms the first part of the Water & Light diptych. The second part brings the story into the present with artist Nicky Assmann (1980). Assmann creates dynamic light projections that enhance the play of colours of the elements by zooming in on water reflections and the glow of the sun.

Unique experience

The exhibition shows how artists throughout the centuries have remained fascinated by the elements of water and light. What took shape in the seventeenth century through Aelbert Cuyp and other Dutch painters continues in this diptych through Turner to the contemporary work of Nicky Assmann.

This unique exhibition is made possible by the Yale Centre for British Art and the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation.