William Turnbull

Courtesy of Turnbull Studio, Offer Waterman, and Waqas Wajahat

BIOGRAPHY AND SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

1922

Born Dundee, Scotland, 11 January

1939–41

Worked in the illustration department of a national periodical company, Dundee

1946–48

Studied at Slade School of Fine Art, London

1948–50

Lived and worked in Paris

1950

Took up permanent residence in London

First marriage to the musician Katharina Wolpe

Kenneth King, Eduardo Paolozzi, William Turnbull, Hanover Gallery, London; Aspects of British Art, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

1952

Visiting Artist, taught at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London until 1961

Solo exhibition at Hanover Gallery; New Aspects of British Sculpture, British Pavilion, XXVI Biennale, Venice; Young Sculptors, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

1956

Contemporary Sculpture, Hanover Gallery, London; This is Tomorrow, Whitechapel Gallery, London; Yngre Brittiska Skulptorer, Gothenburg Museum touring exhibition

1957

First visit to USA

Solo exhibition, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Ten British Sculptors Exhibition, Bienal São Paulo touring exhibition

1958

Contemporary British Sculpture, Arts Council of Great Britain, London touring exhibition; New Trends in British Art, New York-Rome Art Foundation touring exhibition

1959

European Art Today: 35 Painters and Sculptors, Minneapolis Institute of Arts touring exhibition

1960

Married sculptor and printmaker, Kim Lim

First solo exhibition at Molton Street Gallery, London, further solo show in 1961

The Mysterious Sign, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

1961

2nd International Exhibition of Sculpture, Musée Rodin, Paris; Neue Malerei in England, Stadtisches Museum, Leverkusen, Germany; Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pennsylvania

1962

Son Alex born

First travels in Japan, Cambodia and Malaysia

Hirshhorn Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; British Art Today, San Francisco Museum of Art, touring exhibition

1963

Son Johnny born

Solo exhibition, Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York

1964

Taught sculpture at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, until 1972

Guggenheim International, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Painting and Sculpture of a Decade, Tate Gallery, London

1965

Solo exhibition, Benington College, Vermont; Solo exhibition, Galerie Müller, Stuttgart

British Sculpture in the Sixties, Tate Gallery, London; Signale, Kunsthalle, Basel; Drawings from the Betty Parsons Collection, New York; Sculpture from the Albert A. List Family Collection, New School Art Center, New York

1966

Solo exhibition, Pavilion Gallery, Balboa, California

New Shapes and Forms of Colour, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

1967

First solo exhibition at Waddington Galleries, London, further solo shows in 1969, 1970, 1976, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1991, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010

Solo exhibition, IX Bienal, São Paulo, touring to South America

Guggenheim International, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

1968

Solo exhibition, Hayward Gallery, London

Documenta 4, Kassel, Germany; Sculpture in the City, Arts Council Gallery, London, touring exhibition

1972

Commissioned by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation to create a public sculpture for the City Sculpture Project

1973

Major retrospective exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, organised by Richard Morphet

1974

Solo exhibition organised by Scottish Arts Council, Edinburgh; British Painting, Hayward Gallery, London

1976

The Human Clay, Hayward Gallery, London

1977

British Painting:1952-77, Royal Academy of Arts, London

1978

The Mechanised Image, Arts Council of Great Britain, touring exhibition; John Moores Liverpool Exhibition, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2nd prize)

1979

Tate 79 (inaugural exhibition for the new extension), Tate Gallery, London

1981

British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century: Part 2: Symbol and Imagination 1951-1980, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

1984

Solo exhibition at the National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore, with Kim Lim

1986

Forty Years of Modern Art 1945–1985, Tate Gallery, London; British Sculpture 1950-1965, New Art Centre, London

1987

British Art in the Twentieth Century: The Modern Movement, Royal Academy of Arts, London, touring to Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

1989

Scottish Art Since 1900, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh touring exhibition

1990

The Independent Group: Postwar Britain and the Aesthetics of Plenty, Institute of Contemporary

Arts, London, touring exhibition

1992

New Realities, Art in Western Europe 1945-68, Tate Gallery, Liverpool

1993

The Sixties Art Scene in London, Barbican Art Gallery, London

1995

Solo exhibition, Serpentine Gallery, London, selected by David Sylvester

1997

From Blast to Pop: Aspects of Modern British Art, 1915-1965, David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

2000

Welded Sculpture of the Twentieth Century, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York

2002

Transition: The London Art Scene in the Fifties, Barbican Art Gallery, London

2004

Large Horse, 1990, installed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield

Art and the 60s: This Was Tomorrow, Tate Britain, London, touring exhibition

2005

William Turnbull: Retrospective 1946-2003, at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, May

2006

Survey exhibition of sculpture in the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain, London

2011

Beyond Time: William Turnbull, a film by Alex Turnbull and Pete Stern, narrated by Jude Law, premieres at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

Modern British Sculpture, Royal Academy of Arts, London

2012

Westminster Council City of Sculpture Festival, Park Lane, London

November, dies in London aged 90

2013

Solo exhibition at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire

2015

Offer Waterman represents the Estate of William Turnbull

William Turnbull: Selected Works from the Artist’s Estate, Offer Waterman London

2017

William Turnbull: New Worlds, Words, Signs, Offer Waterman, London

2019

Long-term loan to Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, USA of Large Horse, 1990 plus a selection of works on paper. From September 2019

2022

William Turnbull Centenary Retrospective at 9 Cork Street, exhibition organised by Offer Waterman, London