Richard Turner

Artist/curator Richard Turner is a Professor Emeritus at Chapman University where he taught contemporary Asian art history and studio art. He lived in Saigon, Vietnam from 1959 - 1961. He studied Chinese painting and language in Taipei in 1963 - 1964 and Indian miniature painting in Jaipur, Rajasthan in 1967 - 1968 while on a Fulbright scholarship. As Director of Chapman University’s Guggenheim Gallery, he curated over seventy exhibitions. His current studio work is sculptures and drawings based on Chinese scholars’ rocks and Japanese viewing stones.

Mr. Turner has worked as a public artist for over thirty years on projects ranging from metro stations, public parks and water treatment facilities to a justice center, veterans’ memorial and a university chapel. He has worked independently and as a member of a design team, collaborated with architects, engineers, landscape architects and other artists. His public work is guided by a desire to make pieces that are accessible but not obvious, pieces that reveal themselves over time to a diverse audience. His travels in Asia inform his work. He also brings his experience as a university professor, administrator and gallery director to the public art process.