Turner Prize host city to put rare works by JMW Turner on display

When the Turner Prize comes to Hull next week, it won't be the only Turner in town for long.

Paintings by JMW Turner - three rare whaling scenes and a maritime scene dating from the time when the city was the UK’s largest whaling port - will go on show next month at Hull’s Maritime Museum.

Turner’s whaling pictures will be shown alongside work by his contemporaries in Hull as well as some of the museum's renowned collection of scrimshaw - engravings created by whalers using bones and teeth of marine mammals - and Inuit art.

Professor Jason Edwards, from the University of York, which is co-curating the exhibition, said: “Never before has Turner been shown in such various company.

Hull's Maritime Museum has one of the finest collections of scrimshaw in the world

"For me, what's particularly important about the show is the way that it encourages us to think about both human-animal interactions and the Arctic, at a time of mass species extinctions and irreversible climate change.”

Hull Council said the exhibition was a "major coup" for the museum, which is enjoying its most successful ever.

The Turner Prize opens on September 26 at Hull's Ferens Art Gallery. The four shortlisted artists are Hurvin Anderson, Andrea Büttner, Lubaina Himid and Rosalind Nashashibi.

"Turner and the Whale" opens on Saturday October 7.