In the manner of J. M. W. Turner
British, 1775–1851
Blizzard on the Motorway, 2026
Oil on canvas
92 × 138 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.7.5
Headlights come at us out of a white and amber vortex, tail lights go away from us, and a bridge floats in the middle of the storm as if it were holding nothing up. There are no cars to speak of, only light doing what cars do. Turner painted snowstorms with no horizon at all. This is the motorway at five o'clock on the last Friday before Christmas.
The brief
A motorway in a blizzard, headlights and tail lights dissolving into a white and amber vortex, a bridge barely suggested. English Romantic oil painting, forms dissolving into luminous atmosphere, swirling vortex of golden light, sea spray and storm cloud, a barely legible man-made structure at the centre of the turbulence, impasto scumbled whites and yellows, warm ochre and cold grey, sublime scale, thin glazes and thick highlights. Museum photograph of the oil painting, even gallery lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
