Lot 163: John Turner RUA (b.1916) Blackout, The Old Flour

John Turner RUA (b.1916) Blackout, The Old Flour Mill Oil on canvas, 38.6 x 38.6cm (15.25 x 15.25") Exhibited: Ulster Artists Exhibition, the AVA Gallery, Clandeboye, April 2010, catalogue no. 45 In 1938 Turner won a scholarship to the Slade School of Art in London. In 1941 he returned to Ulster and taught at the Technical and High Schools in Coleraine - although painting was his main preoccupation. In 1943 he took a studio in Queen Street, Belfast and formed a friendship with a number of his contemporaries, including George Campbell, Gerard Dillon and Dan O'Neill. In 1948 Turner held his first solo show, an Exhibition of Portraits, in Belfast hosted by CEMA. He was a regular contributor to the annual exhibitions of the Royal Ulster Academy and in 1975 was elected a full member. This is a rare work by Turner done during the war circa 1943 done in the modernist manner. Turner flirted with Pointillism that was usually associated with the neo-impressionists, particularly Seurat and Signac. It is one of the few works Turner did during the war to survive. The effect of turner's pointillist manner is to achieve a diffusion of light throughout the canvas and to create depth and space and a heightened sense of unreality. Paraphrased from an essay by Dickon hall Summer 2002.