Standing in the Sun

Back in print after a decade, this book, which A. S. Byatt called "a pleasure to read," explores the life of J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), Britain's most mysterious painter, whose range of work encompasses seascapes and landscapes, executed in both immensely powerful oil paintings and intimate watercolors. Anthony Bailey crafts what the Guardian called a "very fine portrait" of Turner, the short and stout son of a Covent Garden barber, who achieved fame and fortune during his lifetime and whose works remain enormously popular and influential today. Bailey "writes with flair and imagination" (Sunday Times), using archival material, scholarly literature and research, and many of Turner's sketchbooks, paintings, and watercolors to shed new light on this complicated and secretive artistic figure.