with The Robert Devereux Collection of Post-War British Art
Exhibition History:
London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull, 31 January – 27 February 2007;
London, Sotheby’s, Sculpture and Sculptors’ Drawings from The Ingram Collection, 10 – 21 January 2011;
London, Pangolin Gallery, Exorcising the Fear, 11 January – 3 March 2012;
Woking, The Lightbox, The Ingram Collection: Diamond Jubilee Exhibition, 6 March – 15 April 2012;
London, Canary Wharf, Bronze Sculptures from the Ingram Collection, 16 September – 15 November 2013;
Woking, The Lightbox, The Road to Abstraction, 21 May – 24 July 2016;
Woking, The Lightbox, Is there still life in Still Life? 15 July – 1 October 2017;
Kendal, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Land | Sea | Life: A British Art Collection, 20 October 2017 – 17 February 2018;
Sheffield, Museums Sheffield, Darkness into Light, 20 October 2018 – 13 January 2019
Literature:
Amanda A. Davidson, The Sculpture of William Turnbull, Lund Humphries/HMF, Aldershot, 2005 (illustrated, no. 90, p. 107)
Having left school in 1937, William Turnbull took jobs as a labourer, attending evening art classes at Dundee University. He worked in the illustration department of D.C. Thompson, was drafted into the Royal Air Force and finally joined the Slade School of Fine Art in 1946. He joined the Independent Group in 1952 and was one of the eight sculptors included in ‘New Aspects of British Sculpture’ at the Venice Biennale of 1952. Turnbull was an RAF pilot in World War II and after the noise and turbulence of war, his sculptures focus on the qualities of peace and stillness. A great traveller, Turnbull visited countries in the Far East and the Tropics, looking at the art and architecture of cultures, which inspired his work. He found inspiration for his sculpture in the art and artefacts of tribal cultures and mythology. At the time when he made Strange Fruit he was turning away from figurative work, developing pure abstraction in both his painting and sculpture. Strange Fruit may be seen as a transitional piece. The resting, ovoid form with its pale green patina is in poised equilibrium – it arouses our curiosity – what does it contain, what is it for, what must it be?
