Turner and the Slave Trade

Exploring Turner’s evolving response to slavery, from his investment in enslaved labour to his later denunciation in The Slave Ship

While J. M. W. Turner’s iconic painting The Slave Ship (1840) is celebrated as a powerful criticism of the transatlantic trade in enslaved people, his personal and professional ties to slavery tell a more nuanced story. This book provides the first detailed analysis of Turner’s evolving responses to slavery over his lifetime, from his financial investment in a Jamaican property worked by enslaved labourers to his later denunciation of the trade in his art.

Drawing on extensive archival research, Turner and the Slave Trade traces the artist’s interactions with patrons tied to the plantation economy and examines the impact of abolitionist discourse on his work. Key chapters investigate The Slave Ship, its inspiration, and its contested interpretations while situating Turner within broader debates about art, slavery, and shifting public sentiment.

Offering a nuanced understanding of how art engages with history’s most urgent issues, this important new study presents Turner as an exceptional yet complex figure, whose legacy is intertwined with the institution of slavery and its eventual abolition.

Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Sam Smiles is honorary professor at the University of Exeter, and the author of The Late Works of J. M. W. Turner: The Artist and his Critics (2020).