The New York Times

He looms larger than life in Britain’s imagination; he’s even on the 20 pound note.

Yet as museums across the country celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of J.M.W. Turner — the English Romantic painter known for his images of violent sea squalls, bucolic landscapes and otherworldly sunsets — the facts of his biography are sparse and frequently contested.

I visited his fathers home in Twickenham and Greenwich as well as stops in Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs along the Kent coastline for The New York Times.