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A photographic portrait of George Turner from the well-known Keene studio in Derby, thought to be circa 1880s, when the artist was approaching 'middle age'

The Derbyshire-born artist George Turner (1841-1910) was such an accomplished landscape painter that he has been dubbed 'Derbyshire's John Constable'. A century after his death, his pictures are still highly-regarded, and there is considerable saleroom interest in his work.

George Turner was born at Cromford, Derbyshire, on 2 April 1841. He was probabaly self-taught - 'a natural' - although another school of thought suggests he may have received encouragement and tuition from his father, Thomas Turner, a tailor by profession, but also an enthusiast of painting.

Thomas Turner had first set up his tailoring business in Wirksworth, but moved to Cromford and then Derby with his family. George was brought up in a household which appreciated the artistic elements of life, and he showed early talent at both art and music. But it was painting that he pursued with most vigour, and as a young man he undertook private art teaching in addition to studio practice, working for a time in Birmingham.

George's favourite painting haunt was around the South Derbyshire village of Barrow on Trent, where he met his first wife, Eliza Lakin of Walnut Farm. They were married in the village in 1865 and took up residence at The Walnuts, where four children were born to them.

The winding river and rustic meadows of South Derbyshire proved an inspiration to George, his panoramic views often featuring harvesting scenes, carts fording streams, cattle grazing, or local folk reclining lazily on the river banks.

Turner also painted views in Wales and Scotland, and his canvasses sold well in his lifetime. He exhibited many works at Nottingham and Birmingham, but never in London.

He was a member of the Derby Corporation Art Gallery Committee, and garnered many friends and admirers in artistic circles. He also gave lessons to some fellow Derbyshire artists who in turn achieved a good measure of their own success.

In 1900 his wife Eliza died, and Turner moved to the ancient Barley Mow Inn at Kirk Ireton, near Wirksworth, another part of Derbyshire which he loved dearly. Although his family continued farming at Barrow on Trent, Turner effectively took up residence at the Barley Mow - perchance he found comfort in his widowhood in taking a jar of ale with the same breed of bucolic characters he so often depicted in his works.

But he later married for a second time, to fellow artist Kate Stevens Smith (1871-1964), who was thirty years his junior! The couple set up home at Cliff Ash Cottage, in Idridgehay, Derbyshire, where George lived out his final years.

George Turner died on 29 March, 1910, at the age of 69, and was buried in St. James' churchyard in Idridgehay. Kate moved away from Derbyshire, but at her death was buried alongside George in the village they had enjoyed together.

George's eldest son William Lakin Turner (1867-1936) was an accomplished artist too, and the eldest daughter Mary, later Mary Woore, also painted well.

George Turner left an impressive legacy of hundreds of paintings of a rural idyll soon to vanish, as mechanisation, motorised transport, and widespread urban expansion changed the face of the countryside forever.

That is one very good reason why the works of 'Derbyshire's John Constable' remain as popular today as they were in his own less hurried time.

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County:  Derbyshire

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