Father/Son Sculptors Inducted into Hall of Fame
December 11, 2020
Uncategorized
The Waterfowl Festival announced the outstanding artist inductees of the 2020 Hall of Fame, including father/son sculpting duo William H. and David H. Turner.
The Festival is a family tradition for many, but for father/son duo William H. and David H. Turner that is even more the case than most. They are welcomed into the Hall of Fame for their dedication to both the Festival and their commitment to creating incredible bronze sculptures of Chesapeake Bay and other wildlife that showcase the intricacies of our region’s ecosystem.
Established in 1983, Turner Sculpture near Onley, VA serves as the studio, foundry and gallery, where most of their work is displayed. To date the Turners have created more than 700 different limited edition bronzes and more than 100 large public commissions found throughout the United States. William or “Doc” Turner as he is known, first began making the drive up to Easton for the Festival in 1983. Since then, he and his son, David, a former wildlife biologist, have been some of the foundational artists in our annual sculpture gallery.
In 2016, the Festival chose David as its Featured Artist. His unique and ultimately very popular bronze for that year was Tidewater Terrapin – a different subject matter choice for the Festival that highlighted the ways waterfowl and other Bay creatures are connected. It featured a graceful Diamondback Terrapin, Maryland’s state terrapin, swimming mid-air above the Bay bottom of oysters and grasses. David’s work has always helped the Festival expand its horizons.
“As Board President, one of the things I look forward to most during Waterfowl Festival week is the ceremony inducting the newest members into the Hall of Fame,” said WF Board President Kevin Greaney. “While we had to postpone this year’s Festival, we didn’t want to delay this year’s class as each person has been a very important part of the success of the Festival for years. We will recognize the 2020 Hall of Fame recipients at next year’s Festival Opening Ceremonies but they are official awardees this year.”
David Turner was born, raised and currently resides on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He looked over his father’s shoulder growing up, and thus he started sculpting when he was 6 years old. In 1983 he graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in biology and a minor in studio art. Turner strives to capture the essence of the wildlife he sculpts. He has thousands of photographs that he has taken, natural history books and artifacts, reference castings and preserved specimens that he uses to gather information about the subject of his next project.
Making a Turner sculpture using the “lost wax process” is an extensive process. It begins as a maquette or miniature model, then it is transformed into an oil-based clay model. Next, a rubber mold of the clay model is made to produce a wax replica, which is turned into a heat-resistant ceramic mold into which 2,000-degree molten bronze is poured. Together with his father, Turner has created more than 173 publicly commissioned sculptures for places such as the National Zoo (Washington, D.C.), Brookgreen Gardens (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina), the Philadelphia Zoo, the Brookfield Zoo (Chicago), Benson Park (Loveland, Colorado) and the Salisbury Zoo (Salisbury, Maryland). David has multiple pieces installed in Ocean City, Maryland, as well as at Salisbury University and the Ward Museum.
