Helen Monro Turner (1901 – 1977) was a massively influential Scottish glass engraver, designer, educator, and illustrator, in addition to a extremely revered position mannequin for girls pursuing careers as glass artists, designers, and makers. Her prominence in twentieth century British glass made essential inroads in a area which, till the not-too-distant previous, was dominated by males and misogynistic attitudes. Sarah Rothwell, Senior Curator of Fashionable & Up to date Design, introduces this exceptional Scottish pioneer whose work is held inside our collections.
As it’s Worldwide Girls’s Day and Girls’s Historical past Month I believed it might be the right alternative to rejoice the exceptional achievements of Helen Monro Turner. Turner, for these unaware of her identify, is finest remembered in Edinburgh for her illustrations for the writer Thomas Nelson and Son’s training and leisure books for kids. Her quite a few public architectural commissions will be seen within the metropolis, such because the home windows on the staircase within the Nationwide Library of Scotland. And for establishing the Division of Glass Design at Edinburgh School of Artwork in 1943, nurturing among the main names in glass reminiscent of the daddy of the British Studio Motion Sam Herman, and acclaimed Scottish glass artist Alison Kinnaird.
A prolific artist and designer, Helen Monro Turner wasn’t truly educated in glass design. She educated in Artwork on the College of Edinburgh while additionally gaining a Diploma in Design and Crafts at Edinburgh School of Artwork. She graduated in 1926 with a specialism in woodcut design and illustration. She solely fell in love with the medium of glass after spending time sketching staff on the Edinburgh and Leith Glassworks within the late Twenties for a possible fee.
Initially, she submitted designs to the corporate for consideration. These had been sadly not all the time met with enthusiasm by the lads of the Edinburgh and Leith Glassworks design division, who’re recorded as stating that her designs “…can’t be executed [as] it has by no means been executed earlier than . . . that is too new, too unfamiliar. It won’t promote.” Regardless of being understandably annoyed by their feedback, this didn’t put her off. Quickly the corporate did recognise her “appreciable promise,” and her designs had been notably exhibited on the 1935 British Artwork in Business Exhibition on the Royal Academy in London.
Two designs believed to have been exhibited at Burlington Home have just lately been donated to our collections. The one with its optic twist is kind of conventional, so was in all probability met with approval from the austere males of the E&L design room. The opposite, with its daring graphic zigzag, speaks of the persevering with affect of the Model Moderne, which may also be seen within the illustrations she was commissioned to create by the corporate.
What is kind of exceptional for a time when there have been few ladies employed within the glass business is that Turner was not content material with simply being a passive designer offering instruction for an additional to grasp her work, who then might have been anticipated to go away when she married. Turner needed to have interaction immediately along with her medium of alternative – glass, to achieve an intuitive data of its potential and potentialities. Understanding, as she acknowledged, that “the most effective trainer of glass design is glass itself, and the most effective coaching is that which brings the scholar into closest precise contact with the medium, and into an inquisitive consciousness of its latent potentialities.”
On that foundation, she utilized to Edinburgh School of Artwork for an Andrew Grant Fellowship to check glass engraving, reducing, and etching on the Kunstgewerbeschule in Stuttgart, which she was efficiently awarded in 1938. Sadly, her research had been minimize brief by the declaration of warfare. Nevertheless, the data and contacts she gained within the glass business allowed her to arrange her personal studio in Edinburgh. This introduced in additional commissions from each non-public and industrial ventures and her studio quickly gained a repute each at dwelling and overseas.
One such notable employment was with Hadeland Glass in Norway, the place she would make annual visits between 1947 and 1951 to instruct trainee engravers, develop designs for manufacture, and help within the reconstruction of the Norwegian glass business which had been nearly destroyed in the course of the warfare.
Considered one of Turner’s huge passions, regardless of being naturally shy, was training. Brian Blench, former Keeper of Ornamental Artwork at Kelvingrove Artwork Gallery and Museum who has written quite a lot of articles on Turner, as soon as mentioned of her that “Artists have steadily been pressured into the position of trainer with a view to make a residing with a view to pursue their creative actions. Few, nevertheless, have been so pushed with a need to curiosity, encourage and develop a love of their chosen medium as Helen Monro Turner.”
Initially requested to determine a division of glass engraving at Edinburgh School of Artwork in 1940, she began off with simply 4 college students and two lathes. Nevertheless, her imaginative and prescient for the division was that it shouldn’t be restricted to simply the one side of the artwork of glass wherein she specialised, however ought to cowl all features of glass design and making. Quickly she added lampworking, then sand-blasting, reducing wheels, and, lastly, a furnace and a glass-blower to help her. She additionally believed that every one college students, no matter gender, ought to have the chance to work immediately with glass in all capacities.
The outcome was not solely that was she the primary lady to be head of a glass division within the UK, however by way of her tenacity and foresight she was in a position to set up one of many best-equipped and influential instructional departments on this area. From this spectacular achievement got here a stream of glass artists who remodeled not solely the glass business in post-war Scotland but additionally had a big influence on the British studio glass motion.
Her affect didn’t cease there. In 1956 she established the Juniper Inexperienced Workshop, creating an area wherein quite a lot of her ex-students had been in a position to proceed to develop their oeuvre throughout a interval when post-graduate coaching wasn’t an choice in glass. She additionally helped platform them by facilitating exhibition alternatives each within the UK and America, in addition to commissions from royalty, public establishments, and personal people. It was right here, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, that she created a few of her most monumental architectural commissions for church buildings, libraries, airports, universities and social golf equipment throughout the nation.
Helen Monro Turner might have been considerably forgotten amongst the names of influential twentieth century British glass artists and designers, the place designers reminiscent of Geoffrey Baxter and Keith Murry are predominant. Even when it comes to her specialism of etching, she has been overshadowed considerably by the celeb of John Hutton. Although, in contrast to her friends, there could also be no monographs on her affect, I believe she was actually a exceptional lady who ought to be celebrated and recognised for her work. Additionally for the way, aware of the instances she lived in, she sought out recognition for herself and her college students on a global male-dominated platform. Any dialogue of her legacy can be incomplete with out recognising how she created alternatives for many who excelled in and had a ardour for glass, no matter gender.
Turner’s dedication to the medium which she beloved a lot even prolonged to her carrying a glass fibre gown on her wedding ceremony day. When she married Professor William E. S. Turner, a British chemist, pioneer of scientific glass expertise, founding father of the Turner Museum of Glass at Sheffield College, and one among Helen’s largest skilled supporters. I can’t even think about how itchy that will need to have been!
A becoming tribute to Turner’s legacy in glass training is that regardless of so many craft programs being minimize from fashionable larger training, educating in glass carries on to today by way of the scholars and employees of Edinburgh School of Artwork’s glass division.
For additional studying on the exceptional Helen Monro Turner, I like to recommend testing Brian Blench’s article for the Journal of the Ornamental Arts Society, No.13, Impassioned Imaginative and prescient – Helen Turner and the educating of glass design, and Jill Turnbull’s article Helen Monro Turner – An Artist in Business that featured in The Journal of The Glass Affiliation, Vol. 8.
