London’s National Maritime Museum is currently hosting Turner and the Sea, the first large-scale exhibition to explore J.M.W. Turner’s lifelong fascination with the sea. The British Romantic painter, who is often called the “painter of light,” was drawn to the sea’s sublime yet dangerous nature and spent decades trying to capture its wild beauty.

Turner and the Sea includes 120 works from some of the world’s most prestigious institutions including London’s National Gallery, the Tate, the Yale Center for British Art, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Works on view range from Turner’s transformative paintings of the 1790s to his unfinished works created towards the end of his life. Highlights include The Battle of Trafalgar, Turner’s largest painting and only royal commission; Fishermen at Sea, the first oil painting Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy; The Wreck of a Transport Ship, which has not been seen in London since the 1970s; and The Wreck Buoy, Turner’s last exhibited marine painting.

Turner and the Sea will be on view at the National Maritime Museum through April 21, 2014.