Richard Turner (artist)


Richard Turner, also known as Turneramon, was a British artist and poet.

Life and work

Richard Turner was born in Derby, England and was educated at Bemrose Grammar School, before moving to study at the School of Navigation in Warsash, Southampton. In 1958, he went on to join the Merchant Navy, as a Navigation Cadet Officer, sailing with Ellerman Lines. In 1960, he decided on a career change, and enrolled at the Derby College of Art. Turner won the J. Andrew Lloyd scholarship for Landscape, enabling him to study at the Royal College of Art in London, from 1963. There, he was tutored by Carol Weight and Sir Peter Blake. He graduated in 1966 with an Associate of the Royal College of Art Degree, as well as prizes in Life Drawing, Life Painting, and Landscape Painting.
For the next two years, Turner was a lecturer at the Guildford School of Art; working on environmental installation projects with Australian artist Tony Underhill. He was introduced to etching by Peter Olley and Norman Ackroyd. In 1968, he was employed as an epigraphic artist and photographer by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. For five years, he was based at Chicago House in Luxor, Egypt; making facsimile drawings of the reliefs on the walls of the Temple of Khonsu, Karnak and Medenet Habu, adjacent to the Valley of the Queens.
In 1973, Turner returned to England, lecturing at Salisbury College of Art for three years, before being re-employed in Egypt by the University of Chicago, for a further four years. During this time he made full scale tracings of all columns in hypostyle hall of Luxor Temple. In 1980 he moved to the USA; built a split-level chalet style house in Big Bear, California, and ran his own gallery, named Minnelusa Gallery, on the shores of Big Bear Lake. He also worked as a graphic designer with Treasure Chest Advertising, based in Los Angeles.
Four years later, Turner returned to the United Kingdom, and briefly lived in Edinburgh, before moving south, to become a teacher at Vandyke Upper School in Leighton Buzzard, for five years. He returned to Scotland in 1989, and ran an "art holiday" home business from Park House in Kirkcudbright, as well as lecturing part-time in various colleges and schools. In 1993, Turner met Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, at the opening of Tolbooth Art Centre in Kirkcudbright. Prince Philip commented on Turneramon's work saying it looked "refreshingly different".

Style and influences

Richard Turner's work is mainly figurative painting, including some nudity, within Arcadian landscape settings similar to the compositions in renaissance and mannerist art. Turneramon's first stay in Egypt had a significant effect on his painting style and content. His change from hard edge abstraction to synthetic renaissance is evident in his 5×7 ft. painting, The Resurrection of Tutankhamen, leading to his work being labelled post modernist.

Publications and notable works

Group shows