Eric Shanes

Eric Victor Shanes was an English painter and art historian best known for his scholarship on J. M. W. Turner. Shanes authored several acclaimed works on Turner and other artists, including Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. His most notable books include Young Mr. Turner The First Forty Years, 1775–1815 (2016) and The Life and Masterworks of Salvador Dalí (2012).

Shanes was born in Bedford in 1944 to a Russian-Jewish family. His parents, Mark and Dinah (née Cohen), ran a newsagent's shop. His father, who valued education, ensured that Shanes attended Whittingehame College in Brighton, a boarding school for Jewish boys. The school had a diverse student body, many of whom spoke Arabic, French and Hebrew.

Shanes focused his career on J.M.W. Turner and became widely respected for his research and publications. His book Young Mr Turner received positive reviews, with The New York Review of Books calling it "a monument of scholarship" and The TLS describing it as "spectacular". He also wrote on Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol, although Turner remained his main subject.

Shanes curated a notable exhibition on Turner at the Royal Academy in 2000. His final major work, Young Mr. Turner, published shortly before his death, was widely praised as the definitive biography of Turner's early life.

Critics lauded the book for revealing new dimensions of Turner's personality and artistic growth, with The New York Review of Books describing it as "a monument of scholarship."

Eric Shanes passed away in 2017 at the age of 72.

Photo credit: www.whittingehame.com