Robert Chapman Turner Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1913 - d. 2005

Robert Turner was born in 1913 in Port Washington, New York. After a very productive life as an artist/potter and teacher in Alfred, New York, he died on July 26, 2005. He received a B.A. degree in 1936 from Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA. In 1949 he earned an M.F.A. degree from the State University of New York College of Ceramics, Alfred University, New York. Between degrees, Turner studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. He taught for two years at Black Mountain College, North Carolina (1949-1951) and at intervals at the Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina (1969-1974). For more than twenty years (1958-1979) he was professor of ceramic art in the department of Art and Design at Alfred University. Turner’s early works in the 1950s were utilitarian vessels. Gradually his interest shifted away from function to the abstract shapes of sculptural form. Working with stoneware , he developed muted glazes that he sandblasted to give a softness and weathered appearance to the forms. His travel to West Africa strongly influenced his sense of form in his mature works -- with limited palette of white, red/brown and black. He and his wife Sue, spend winter months in Santa Fe where they had a home on Canyon Road. Some of his pottery was made here to transport back to New York State for firing. He was an inspirational teacher whose influence in the field of pottery was profound. His works are owned by major museums and collections throughout the U.S. and abroad. See Directions in Contemporary American Ceramics, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1984, for a select list of solo and