Larry Turner

Born in 1932 in Concord, New Hampshire, Turner graduated from Harvard in 1954 with honors in philosophy and received his MFA from the University of New Mexico in 1956. He married fellow artist Betty Turner in 1953 and after two years in Albuquerque, New Mexico, they moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1956 where he taught painting and philosophy of art at the University of Colorado for thirty years, becoming Professor Emeritus in 1995. He was an influential professor and artist in the Colorado scene in the 1960s and 70s, associated for many years with the Criss-Cross Art Communication movement, which later became associated with New York’s Pattern & Decoration (P&D) movement, and was a founding member of the seminal Spark Gallery.

Turner began his career in the 1950s as an abstract gestural painter. In 1959, Turner first visited Italy, greatly influencing his work. He was profoundly affected by Italian sculpture and architecture and painted daily that year surrounded by casts from the Parthenon in his 16th century studio. He and Betty eventually bought a farmhouse in Antella, Italy, in 1968, where he kept a studio and returned for part of every year for the rest of his life.

By the 1960s, Turner’s abstract paintings had developed into mathematical and precise compositions balancing line, shape, and form, creating formally inventive tessellations with a complex understanding of color. Turner continued his systematic approach to painting until the 1980s, when he turned toward classical figuration in both his painting and his reignited photography practice, which featured large format black and white photographs of nudes in classical architectural and sculptural settings.

Turner’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico since the 1970s, including Patterning and Decoration, Museum of the American Foundation for the Arts, Miami, Florida in 1977; 19 Americans, Guggenheim Museum, New York in 1981; More than One Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992; Pitti Rivisitato: Fotographie di George Turner, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy, 1997; Imagenes de Tiempo, Sensibilidad y Sombra, Museo del Chopo, Mexico City, 1999; Photographs of George Turner, Amethyst Gallery, Chennai, India, 2001; Camera Obscura Photographs, Grand Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, 2004; Cut to Swipe, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014, New York; Pattern, Decoration, and Crime, MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland (traveled to Le Consortium, Dijon, France), 2019; Les Chemins du Sud, Musée regional d’art contemporain, Serignan, France, 2019; and Betty Turner and George Turner, Charleston, East Sussex, England, 2023. A retrospective of forty years of Turner’s painting was presented at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska in 2006.

Turner’s works are also represented in public collections internationally, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. He also completed major public commissions in Detroit, Michigan; Denver, Colorado; and Buffalo, New York.

• 1954-1956: University of New Mexico, M.A. in Fine Arts
• 1952-1953: Museum School, Boston Museum of Fine Arts
• 1950-1954: Harvard University, A.B. Cum Laude Honors in Philosophy

Solo Exhibitions

• 2025 DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY, George Woodman: A Democracy of Parts, Paintings 1965-1978
• 2016 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, NY, George Woodman: Photographs
• 2014 Galleria Bagnai at Milan Image Art Fair, Milan, Italy, George Woodman
• 2012 Galleria Bagnai, Florence, Italy, Heroines, (exhibition catalogue)
• 2011 Galleria Massimo Manini, Milan Image Art Fair, Milan, Italy, George Woodman Centro Espositivo Antonio Berti, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, Nati Digitali O Divenuti Tali
• 2010 Galleria Bagnai, Florence, Italy, How a Picture Grows a World, (exhibition catalogue) Harvey Meadows Gallery, Aspen, CO, George Woodman: Photographs Anderson Ranch, Snowmass Village, CO, National Artist Award
• 2007 Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE, George Woodman: Paintings 1960- 2000, (exhibition catalogue)
• 2004 Grand Arts, Kansas City, MO, Camera Obscura Photographs, (exhibition catalogue)
• 2001 Cento Giovanni Lotti, Mercatale Val di Pesa, Firenze, Italy, George Woodman 1999 Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, Mexico, Imagenes de tiempo, sensibilidad y sombra
• 1998 Palazzo della Torre, Greve, FIorence, Italy, True Pictures of False Women Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO, George Woodman: Sensuality in a World of Reason, (exhibition catalogue)
• 1997 Museo Universitario, Puebla, Mexico, George Woodman Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy, Pitti Rivisitato: Fotografie di George Woodman, (exhibition catalogue) Dryphoto Arte Contemporanea, Prato, Italy, George Woodman
• 1991 Barbara Toll Fine Arts, New York, NY, Museum Pieces, (exhibition catalogue) 1990 Payton-Rule Gallery, Denver, CO, Recent Photographs 1987 Ruth Siegel Ltd., New York, NY, Fans, Lattices, Flowers, Paintings
• 1985-86 1984 Bevier Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, Rochester Carpet 1983 Nelson-Fosdick Gallery, Alfred, NY, Paper Tilings Haber-Theodore Gallery, New York, NY, George Woodman: Paintings
• 1982 Viterbo College, LaCrosse, WI, Paper Tilings Haber-Theodore Gallery, New York, NY, Painting and Paper Tile Installation National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., Pattern
• 1981 University Galleries, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, Paper Tilings, (exhibition catalogue) Hadler/Rodriguez Galleries, New York, NY, George Woodman Watercolors Boulder Center for the Visual Arts, Boulder, CO, George Woodman
• 1979 Claremore College, Claremore, OK, Three Paper Tilings (installation) Bridge Gallery, Boulder Public Library, Boulder, CO
• 1978 Bridge Gallery, Boulder, CO, Sixteen Permutations/Nine Modules Jasper Gallery, Denver, CO, George Woodman/Paintings
• 1976 Nicholls Fine Art Gallery, Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, LA Edge Gallery, Boulder, CO
• 1975 Joseph Magnin Gallery, Denver, CO 1974 George Woodman, Hill’s Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
• 1973 Mostra Personale, Galleria Sincron, Brescia, Italy University of Colorado Museum, Boulder, CO
• 1971 Denver Center Gallery, University of Colorado, Denver, Order and Imagery: Paintings 1965-1970
• 1970 Spectrum Gallery, New York, NY, George Woodman 1969 Gallery 1309, Boulder, CO

Group Exhibitions:

• 2025 University of Colorado Art Museum, Boulder, CO, Hello Friend Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy, The Rosy Crucifixion
• 2024 DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY, Who Is There? 2023 Charleston, Lewes, East Sussex, England, Betty Woodman and George Woodman
• 2021 S&S Corner Shop, Springs, NY, Interior Scroll or What I Did on My Vacation
• 2019 Musée régional d’art contemporain (MRAC) Occitanie, Serignan, France, Les Chemins du Sud
• 2018 Musée d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland, Pattern, Decoration, and Crime, Traveled to: Le Consortium, Dijon, France
• 2019 David Richard Gallery, New York, NY, Systemic Pattern Painting: Artists of the Criss-Cross Cooperative