William Turnbull

Born in Dundee, Scotland, and later based in London, the artist William Turnbull (1922–2012) shaped postwar sculpture and painting through his innovative engagement with form, space, and material. Throughout his long career, he was conversant with artistic tendencies in Britain, Europe, and the United States, and he exchanged with major artists of the time, including Alberto Giacometti, Mark Rothko, and Helen Frankenthaler.

By the time Turnbull began studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1946, he had already lived through several experiences that would shape his artistic approaches. In Turnbull’s words, working in the illustration department at D.C. Thomson in Dundee (1939–41) introduced him to "all sorts of ideas and new books [about art]: it opened up a new world". The intense aerial views offered during Turnbull’s experiences in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, when he was stationed in Sri Lanka and India, shaped his conceptualisation of the landscape and gave him a lifelong interest in travel. His later journeys to archaeological sites throughout Asia, North Africa, and Europe with his wife, the artist Kim Lim, honed his fascination for what he saw as cross-cultural commonalities and concerns.

Turnbull’s sculpture was always adaptable and invited the viewer’s direct involvement. His preoccupations with different permutations and arrangements of materials achieved their fullest expression in the 1960s and 70s, when Turnbull expanded from plaster and bronze casting to industrial materials such as steel and fibreglass. He returned to modelling in clay and casting in bronze from the late 1970s, beginning a long series of heads, female figures, and horses, as well as multiple outdoor sculptures. At a time when artists were expected to choose between sculpture and painting, Turnbull often exhibited his paintings and sculptures together, exploring the visual and conceptual dialogues between them.