10.24.26 Ben Turner

Light On The Mesas

Ben Turner (1912-1966)

Chimayo Trading Staff Report | October 2026

Ben Turner, born in Gallup, New Mexico, in 1912, was one of the relatively few native New Mexican artists to achieve commercial success in the first half of the twentieth century. A direct descendant of the celebrated English painter J.M.W. Turner, he brought a distinctive sensitivity to light and atmosphere to the landscapes of the American Southwest. Turner showed early artistic promise…

“Santuario de Chimayo”
Oil on canvas
Hand-carved 22k Gold Leaf Frame
24” x 36”

After high school he studied at the University of New Mexico and the Art Institute of Chicago. While still young he created the syndicated comic strip Jerry ’n’ Jake, which appeared in more than forty Southwestern newspapers. In Taos he sought out the guidance of leading members of the Taos Society of Artists… Ernest Blumenschein, Eanger Irving Couse, Victor Higgins, and Joseph Henry Sharp, absorbing their approaches to color, form, and the distinctive light of northern New Mexico. During World War II, Turner served as a staff artist with the Army Air Forces and helped establish the 15th Air Force Staff Artists.

“New Mexico Aspens”
Oil on canvas
20” x 30”

His on-site drawings of the airfields at Bari, Italy, and the Ploesti oil fields in Romania were published in Life and Look magazines. After the war he returned to the landscapes that defined his mature work: golden aspen groves, cottonwoods along arroyos, adobe villages, and mountain valleys rendered with thick, spontaneous brushwork. He rarely made preliminary sketches, preferring to respond directly to the scene before him.

Oil on canvas
16” x 20”

Turner maintained studios in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico; Redstone, Colorado; and Mazatlán, Mexico. His paintings entered collections including the Library of Congress, the Museum of New Mexico, and other regional institutions. He died of a heart attack in Mazatlán on February 3, 1966, at the age of fifty-three.

Today Turner is remembered for his lush, color-rich depictions of the Southwest’s seasonal beauty… works that capture both the specific character of New Mexico and Colorado light and a quiet, enduring sense of place in mountain areas, the light intensity of the higher altitudes and the majesty of the views. Come to our gallery in Ranchos de Taos to see these New Arrivals from Ben Turner, or visit us online at chimayotrading.com.

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Ranchos de Taos, NM 87557

575.758.0504

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