York-born Etty was a contemporary of Turner and Constable. Courtesy York Art Gallery

York Art Gallery is displaying several never seen before sketches and life studies by famous local artist William Etty, which are being shown next to some of his best-known oil paintings.

William Etty – Drawing From Life runs until June 4 2006 and gives visitors an intimate insight into how the 19th century artist worked.

“We wanted to do an exhibition that brought together his sketches, such as the ones on the backs of envelopes, right the way up to his finished oil paintings,” said Jennifer Alexander the gallery’s assistant curator of fine arts.

The resulting exhibtion succeeds in showing the progression of his work and is an exciting opportunity for the public to have a glimpse of how York’s best known painter worked.

Many of the sketches and life studies for the Drawing From Life exhibition have never been seen before with several others rarely on show before.

Etty made many of his drawings and sketches at the life school at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Courtesy York Art Gallery

Etty (1787-1849) is remarkable for being the only major British painter before the 20th century to have specialised in the nude and he did so often in the face of public censure.

A slightly younger contemporary of Turner and Constable, he was born in York and returned there to retire after spending his working career in London.

He became successful as a painter of classical and biblical subjects, which often offered the pretext for depicting the nude. Such pictures were based on countless nude studies painted in the life school of the Royal Academy who have loaned to the exhibition the watercolour box Etty used to paint many of these great nude studies.