|
|
Ad Code: 4
|
from Auction House Records.
Mountain Farms, Marino Valley
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
|
|
|
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  The following was submitted April 2004 by Ramona "Sue" Day
Elmer Page Turner was married to Ila McAfee. Their home was the White Horse Studio in Taos, New Mexico. I knew Ila McAfee very well. She was a friend of my parents, Lola and Wesley Freeburg. I only met Elmer Turner one time back in the 1950's. He was shell-shocked during World War II and was unable to continue with his painting after that time. That was the story I was told.
One of the things I enjoyed most as a child visiting the Turners was watching their cat Sanka perform. Sanka was a Siamese cat they named Sanka because from the time they got her as a kitten she slept right through the night and never awakened them meowing. They taught her to play piano, pull a wagon, all sorts of cute tricks. I am not aware that they ever had any children, but they were extremely fond of Sanka -- Make a short film of her that I got to see. I don't know if the film ever went into production as a movie short, or was just for their enjoyment. She was a remarkable feline.
After Mr. Turner died Ila McAfee traveled extensively, painting all sorts of animals in places like South America. I have letters she sent my Mother.
|
Biography from Robert L. Parsons Fine Art:
|  Elmer Turner was born in Wyoming, and in 1899 his family moved to Greeley, Colorado. He served in the First World War as a second lieutenant, and there are some surveys and sketches from that period that show considerable academic influence.
By 1920 Turner was in Chicago studying at the Art Institute and with James E. Mcburney, a noted muralist. This is where Elmer met his wife and fellow artist Ila McAfee. They were married in 1926 at the McAfee ranch in the Cochetopa Valley near Gunisson, Colorado, with their mentor, James McBurney in attendance. He and the newlyweds then left, traveling together to work on a mural for the Los Angeles County Museum. On the way they detoured through Taos, New Mexico, the famous art colony Ila had heard about from a fiend. They were immediately enchanted by Taos, and they quickly met many of the artists including Blanche Grant, Oscar Berninghaus, Ernest and Mary Blumenschein, Victor Higgins, and E. Martin Hennings, living in Taos at that time.
From there they went to California where they spent the winter working on the mural, as well as painting many seascapes and coastal landscape paintings. Soon after their return from California in the spring of 1927, Elmer achieved his first success, winning acclaim for a painting used on a cover of a major national news magazine. The remainder of that year was spent working and painting in Colorado, but in 1928 Elmer and Ila moved permanently to Taos and became a big part for the art colony there.
Tragically Turner’s time painting in Taos was limited, even though he lived well into his 70’s, because he was paralyzed by a neurological disorder ten years after moving to the area. For this reason there are only a few hundred know paintings by Turner of this time period, and many of them are privately held, in museum collections or recently released from the family estate.
Turner's paintings can be found in all the major museum collections in New Mexico including but not limited to the Taos Art Museum, the Harwood Museum of Art, and The Fine Arts Museum in Santa Fe. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Elmer Turner is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Taos Pre 1940
|
|
|