Two Turner paintings on loan to an exhibition in Frankfurt were stolen in 1994. Tate’s accounts record their restoration to the Turner Bequest in December 2002. The recovery reunited works whose very titles, Shade and Darkness and Light and Colour, invite comparison.
That broken artistic conversation gives Frankfurt our edge over Stockholm. Oslo comes higher because the recovered Scream retained damage. View the Turner shown here as part of a pair: removing its counterpart changes how an exhibition can tell the story, even before money enters the discussion.
Source: Tate · 2004–05.
Image: J. M. W. Turner · Public domain. Resized and recompressed; original rights retained.
