Grace Hill Turnbull (December 30, 1880 – December 26, 1976) was an American painter, sculptor and writer.

Biography

Born to a cultured family in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, Turnbull studied painting at the

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of t ...

, the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

, and the Art Students League of New York. She then turned her attention to sculpture, studying at the Rinehart School of the Maryland Institute and in Rome. In 1914 she received the Whitelaw Reid Prize in Paris, and she received the Anna Hyatt Huntington Prize in 1932 and 1944. Turnbull was notorious during her life for her commitment to abstinence in many fields – she objected strenuously to alcohol, and served only apple juice at her own gatherings – and her support for

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

. She lived in Baltimore for much of her life, in a house and studio designed by her brother Bayard, and never married. Besides her artistic pursuits she wrote a number of books, including ''Tongues of Fire'' (1929) and ''Fruit of the Vine'' (1950). Her autobiography ''Chips from My Chisel'' was published in 1953, and she also editor ''Essence of Plotinus'' (1934). Turnbull also wrote pamphlets and contributed articles to a variety of publications. One example is the eight page pamphlet, ''Battle Front as Seen by a Sculptor,'' published by the Women's International League in 1936. Turnbull's 1941 sculpture, ''Python of India,'' is owned by the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, while two of her public artworks, a memorial to Lizette Woodworth Reese and a statue of a naiad, remain in Baltimore. A collection of her papers is held at Syracuse University. Her house in the Guilford neighborhood, which she had willed along with a collection of artworks to the

Maryland Historical Society The Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC), formerly the Maryland Historical Society (MdHS), . founded on March 1, 1844, is the oldest cultural institution in the U.S. state of Maryland. The organization "collects, preserves, and inte ...

, still stands. Her work was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

in 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turnbull, Grace 1880 births 1976 deaths American women sculptors American women painters 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American painters 20th-century American writers 20th-century American women artists 20th-century American women writers Artists from Baltimore Writers from Baltimore Painters from Maryland Maryland Institute College of Art alumni Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni Art Students League of New York alumni Sculptors from New York (state) Sculptors from Maryland