JMW Turner and sex: exhibition offers insight into private life of artist

Detail from JMW Turner’s Nude Swiss Girl and a Companion on a Bed. ‘You always think of him as the painter of landscapes … [we] hope the display will make people think again,’ says the co-curator of the new exhibition. Photograph: Turner, Joseph Mallord William/Tate Images

JMW Turner is revered as a genius landscape painter, the king of the turbulent maritime scene, but much less is known about the more private side of the artist. Specifically: Turner and sex.

The curators of a new exhibition, Between the Sheets, Turner’s Nudes, hope to change that by displaying rarely seen erotic watercolour drawings that he made over the course of his career.