William Turnbull (11 January 1922 – 15 November 2012) was a Scottish artist.
«Although Turnbull excelled in a variety of media, it was sculpture for which he was most well known and admiredArtist William Turnbull has passed away, according to the Arts Desk. His work ranged from output ranged from figurative sculpture through to steel-based minimalist sculpture and abstract painting.William Turnbull was born in 1922 in Dundee, Scotland. In World War II he served as a pilot, undertaking training in Canada. After the war he developed his artistic expression. Turnbull studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and later he studied in Paris.To develop as a painter and a sculptor, Turnbull spent time with Leger, Giacometti and Brancusi.Turnbull's work has been displayed at the Tate in London, the National Galleries of Scotland, Leeds Museum, England, and in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington.Quoted by the BBC, Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota said: „William Turnbull was an exceptional artist, unusually gifted both as a painter and a sculptor. Initially, his distinctive sculpture developed in response to his stay as a young man in post-war Paris. It matured through his admiration for the simple forms of ancient and eastern cultures and his abiding search for the essence in any object. In this he came close to the purity of Barnett Newman, or to his own contemporaries such as Ellsworth Kelly. However, his sculpture and his painting always had a humanist sensibility that identified it as profoundly European.“For those wishing to see a selection of Turnbull's work, there is an on-line gallery dedicated to his best exhibits.»

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