General Chat

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9936197/J-M-W-Turner-mustnt-idolised-owned-share-firm-used-slaves-Tate-boss-says.html

Sorry for the newspaper for the link I know some will be offended.

Now we can't like Turners paintings because he once owned one share in a sugar plantation......and......he painted steam ships and that's why we have climate change now.
On that logic ALL our ancestors are to blame for climate change as they burnt coal and wood to cook and keep warm...so we should all hang our heads in shame and denounce ourselves.....

Don't forget Turners paintings etc are in the Tate Gallery.....Tate.....and I love the Tate gallery but pot kettle.....

I fear this man might be for the chop!

He does know where he's working is connected to the sugar trade, doesn't he?

Edit: a thought just occurred to me. Do you think he is after some severance pay because, surely, a person in his position would have been bright enough to know more about his employer - unless he is a bit dim and was shoed in!

Also Tate Modern's ex power station was likely responsible for many times more carbon dioxide than all the steam ships and other devices that Turner painted.

Looks like I'm now going to deny that Turner is part of 'the story' of my family.

Rats!

There are 35 years between Turner having a share in slavery and his painting 'Slave Ship', apparently painted as an indictment of the slave trade.’
So no-one's allowed to make a mistake now?

I sincerely hope Alex Farquharson - the person who thinks Turner should be banned, has looked closely into his ancestry.

Apparently, the slave trade made Scotland rich - and there's a 'Farquharson Wharf' in Black River, Jamaica - used for transporting slaves.

One would hate to call this academic, a thick hypocrite, and suggest he goes and hides himself away, wouldn't one? :-D :-D

It just proves if you look enough you might find something questionable for anyone....

It's surely not what you've done but whether you carried on doing it that matters.

Yes Tate got rich on sugar...I've not looked into them enough to know whether they directly knew what conditions were like etc....they did at least provide for the public in so much as an art gallery...then again....only rich people would have gone years ago....you see you can't change what happened in the past and you can't tar someone with feathers and judge by todays standards. By all means explain in future reference books that people in the past might have done something wrong like in this case owning one share....but that's not enough to close his gallery down or tear down statues of others or rename streets......learn from their mistakes not hide them!!

I know it’s a matter of taste but I prefer Turner’s ship art much more than I do his landscapes. Perhaps this guy did not like Turner’s art at all but if that is so, at his age he ought to have known which side his bread was buttered.

Very strange behaviour from someone in his position. :-S

Exactly why work at the Tate of all places if you don't like Turner!

Also, why work at the Tate, if you're going to go all 'woke'! :-D :-D

I mean, all those naked ladies and men - how can we be sure they were willing participants - are there letters of acceptance?

Erm my Grandmother emigrated to Australia on a steam ship in 1928, does that mean I should own up to such a thing.

Or to put it another way, so what, it happened over 2 hundred years ago, some people should look closer to home for climate change blame and be opened minded about something that can't be changed now.

All very good points.

Oh - I forgot - I wonder which University Mr Farquharson attended?

If it was one funded by a slave trader, I sincerely hope he gives back his degree and gets a job suitable for his lack of paper education!!

Like the Rhodes scholar who objected to Rhodes the other year you mean Maggie?

And all the others since!