Raptor Rapture, a combination of linocut, woodcut, and screenprint, was printed in colors by Janet Turner in 1976. It is pencil signed, titled, editioned 155/160 (edition variable), dated, and inscribed “NA” and “imp.” Printed on heavy antique-white wove paper, the image measures 22-1/2 x 30 inches. Raptor Rapture is illustrated on pages [20] & [21] in “Janet Turner: Selected Works 1948 -1983,” University Art Gallery, California State University, Chico and on page 50 in Janet Turner 1914-1988: A Catalogue Raisonné, Drawings, Paintings and Graphic Work.
Turner did not create a sentimental image; she defined the raptors in great detail showing their strength and wildness. Turner noted: “My work comes from my evolving knowledge of social, biological and ecological relationships. My observations through my art have led to new awareness and have increased my sense of amazement, wonder, my concern about man’s impact on the world, a feeling perhaps imperfectly conveyed to others. I am awed by the richness of nature, interested in details of fur and feathers, which have meaning because they evolved from the relationship of one thing to another…”
Janet Turner, painter, printmaker, and art professor was born on 7 April 1914 in Kansas City, Missouri. She studied botany at Stanford University, while also taking courses in drawing and painting. Turner switched her major from biology to Far Eastern history, earning her BA in 1936. Upon her return from exploring Asia, she enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute where she studied painting under Thomas Hart Benton and earned a five-year degree in 1941. She began exhibiting her work and was hired to teach at Girls' Collegiate School at Claremont, California, all the while working on her graduate studies in painting under fellow Missourian Henry McFee and Millard Sheets at Claremont College where she earned her MFA in 1947.
After graduation Turner moved to Texas to work as an assistant professor in the art department of Stephen F. Austin State College. During this time, she began experimenting with printmaking, applying her love of fine detail to the plates and blocks. Turner remained steadfast in her desire to eschew popular recognition in favor of teaching and creating what she loved, and she continued to exhibit within a quieter sphere.
In 1950, her tempera, Pelicans, was accepted for the 50 Years of American Art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. After that Turner participated in print and watercolor annuals and biennials hosted by the Brooklyn Art Museum, the Print Club of Philadelphia, the Society of American Graphics Artists, the National Serigraph Society, the American Color Print Society, and the Library of Congress. She became a member of the National Association of Women Artists and the American Color Print Society, and was elected a member of the Audubon Artists of New York. In 1952, Turner was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and, in 1956, she returned to New York to study at Columbia University, earning a doctorate in education in 1960.
Turner accepted a position at Chico State University where she made her mark as both a professor and an advocate for fine printmaking. Over her thirty-three-year career she was pivotal in upgrading the fine arts department. She also helped to design a printmaking facility to rival those she visited throughout the U.S. Turner was elevated to Academician in the National Academy of Design in 1974 and became the first professor at Chico State to be awarded the California State University's Outstanding Professor Award in 1975.
Turner was an avid collector of fine prints, beginning with a women’s printmaker print club in which she traded and critiqued works alongside her contemporaries. While expanding her collection, she did not discriminate between popular and obscure artists. In 1981, Chico State opened the Janet Turner Print Museum, which includes the 4,000 prints from her personal collection as well as a selection of her own works. Her work is included in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Janet Turner died in Chico, California on 28 June 1988.
