William Turnbull 1922-2012
Abstract painter in oils and acrylic and sculptor in various media. Born in Dundee, he worked as an illustrator before attending the Slade School from 1946-8. He lived in Paris from 1948 to 1950, meeting Giacometti and Brancusi, and he has travelled extensively since, making his first trip to America in 1957. He held his first solo exhibitions at the Hanover Gallery, showing sculpture in 1950 and painting in 1952. Thereafter he exhibited at London galleries (including the Waddington from 1967), and abroad. His work appeared in the Venice Biennale of 1952 and 1957 and the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh of 1958 and 1961.
William Turnbull began to make ‘Idols’ in the mid-1950s: simplified structures whose totality could be grasped in a glance. Their presence was primal, evoking – though not mimicking – works from other civilisations. At the British Museum, Turnbull had studied Cycladic and African sculpture, as well as utilitarian objects, such as spoons, which possessed symbolic significance. His contribution to the radical exhibition ‘This is Tomorrow’, in 1956, was Sun Gazer, a mysterious ovoid on a pedestal. Turnbull amplified his intention in the catalogue:
Sculpture used to look ‘modern’; now we make objects that might have been dug up at any point in the past forty thousand years. Sculpture = totemic object. It can exist inside or outside architectural space.... read more
Abstract painter in oils and acrylic and sculptor in various media. Born in Dundee, he worked as an illustrator before attending the Slade School from 1946-8. He lived in Paris from 1948 to 1950, meeting Giacometti and Brancusi, and he has travelled extensively since, making his first trip to America in 1957. He held his first solo exhibitions at the Hanover Gallery, showing sculpture in 1950 and painting in 1952. Thereafter he exhibited at London galleries (including the Waddington from 1967), and abroad. His work appeared in the Venice Biennale of 1952 and 1957 and the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh of 1958 and 1961.
William Turnbull began to make ‘Idols’ in the mid-1950s: simplified structures whose totality could be grasped in a glance. Their presence was primal, evoking – though not mimicking – works from other civilisations. At the British Museum, Turnbull had studied Cycladic and African sculpture, as well as utilitarian objects, such as spoons, which possessed symbolic significance. His contribution to the radical exhibition ‘This is Tomorrow’, in 1956, was Sun Gazer, a mysterious ovoid on a pedestal. Turnbull amplified his intention in the catalogue:
Sculpture used to look ‘modern’; now we make objects that might have been dug up at any point in the past forty thousand years. Sculpture = totemic object. It can exist inside or outside architectural space.
In the late 1950’s his panting was influenced by Rothko and Still and thereafter his work was concerned with colour fields, painted in a lively technique with thin applications of pigment. All his work is characterised by the economy and integrity of the image.
The many public collections holding his work include the Tate Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington. He was a founder member of the Independent Group at the ICA. From 1952 to 1961 he was instructor in experimental design, and from 1964 to 1972 instructor in sculpture at the Central School of Art. He married the sculptor Kim Lim.
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