Murray Turnbull

It Looked as if a Night of Dark Intent was Coming, 1992

Murray Turnbull (1919-2014) was an American artist and art educator, but is best known as the founder of the East–West Center in Honolulu.^[1] He was born in Sibley, Iowa. He received a BFA from the University of Nebraska in 1941 and an MA from the University of Denver in 1949. In 1954, he began teaching at the University of Hawaii^[2] In 1959, while acting dean of the university's College of Arts and Sciences, Turnbull first proposed an "international college" for all the peoples of Asia and the Pacific. The idea was advanced by Hawaii's delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives (and later governor) John A. Burns, who, with the help of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, obtained federal funding for an international university in Hawaii, now known as the East–West Center.^[3] Turnbull retired from the University of Hawaii as a professor emeritus in 1985.

Although a modernist, Turnbull is known for his brightly colored figurative paintings, such as Far Let the Voices of the Mad Wild Birds Be Calling Me from 1988. In addition to paintings, Turnbull designed the following public art:^[4]

• Four-story stained glass windows for Keller Hall at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1958
• Four concrete sculpture walls for the Music Building at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1975
• A forty-foot mural for Wahiawa Intermediate School, 1975
• A fifty-foot mural on the exterior wall of Kokua Market in Moiliili, Hawaii, 2001

References

• Haar, Francis and Murray Turnbull (ed.), Artists of Hawaii: Volume Two, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1977, ISBN 0824804678
• Wisnosky, John and Tom Klobe, A Tradition of Excellence, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, 2002, p. 114

Footnotes