Helen Turner (artist)

Helen Marla Turner (November 13, 1858 – January 31, 1958) was an American painter and teacher, known for her work in oils, watercolors and pastels in which she created miniatures, landscapes, still lives and portraits, often in an Impressionist style.

Turner was born in Louisville, Kentucky while her parents, Mortimer Turner and Helen Maria Davidson, were on a long visit to family in the town. Her lineage was respectable; she was the great-granddaughter of John Pintard of New York, granddaughter of a well-known doctor from New Orleans, and daughter of a wealthy Louisiana businessman. Turner spent much of her early life between Alexandria, Louisiana and New Orleans, and early became a refugee from the American Civil War, which destroyed her father's fortune and led to the loss of his business. Her mother died in 1865, after a long illness; her father's death when she was thirteen left her in the care of a widowed uncle in New Orleans who lived in "genteel poverty".

Turner began painting at twenty-two; her early works were portraits and bayou landscapes. Initially self-taught, she began taking free classes offered by Tulane University, continuing under the tutelage of Andres Molinary and Bror Anders Wikstrom; she also studied at the Artists' Association of New Orleans. The death of her uncle in 1890 meant that she had to support herself, and she took a position teaching art at St. Mary's Institute, a girls' school in Dallas, Texas, beginning in 1893. She moved to New York City in 1895, for further study and attended the Art Students League (where she was accepted despite being, at thirty-seven, beyond the age limit for admittance),Cooper Union and Columbia University; her teachers included Arthur Wesley Dow,Kenyon Cox, William Merritt Chase and Douglas Volk. Her sister Laurette, a textile artist, came to New York with her. Turner traveled with Chase and his class to Italy in 1904, 1905, and 1911, but otherwise appears to have shown scant interest in studying abroad, unlike other American Impressionists.

...
Wikipedia