yc british art

A beautifully produced facsimile of the last known intact sketchbook by J. M. W. Turner

J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) seldom left home without a sketchbook. Over the course of his lifetime, he filled more than three hundred, most of them small enough to carry in his pocket. This facsimile represents Turner’s last known intact sketchbook, now in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art. Turner used it on the coast of the English Channel in Kent, in and around Margate, from June to September 1845.

The volume is accompanied by a poem in which Tracey Emin (b. 1963) expresses her profound connection with Turner’s work. Emin grew up in Margate, the seaside town that Turner returned to time and again to draw.

This presentation of Turner’s sketchbook includes generous margins and blank pages to encourage further sketches, in the spirit of the artist.

Distributed for the Yale Center for British Art

Tracey Emin is professor of drawing at the Royal Academy and an internationally renowned British multimedia artist whose work focuses on the themes of autobiography, memoir, and confession.