Gloria Deak Turner [ 1928 - 2021] was a well known artist from the Washington, D.C. area. As an Abstract Expressionist painter, her work displays gesture, color, and paint to create drama and vitality for the viewer. Rather than describing an object, landscape, person or idea, her work evolves from the first brush mark on the canvas.
Gloria’s paintings have been exhibited at numerous juried shows in the Washington, D.C. area such as American University’s Katzen Art Center and the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery in Maryland where she received an honorable mention. She has also shown at The Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum and was part of a two person show at the The Jackson Art Center in Washington, D.C. Earlier in her career, Gloria successfully sold her art to well known textile designers such as Givenchy, Louis Ferraud, and Elizabeth Arden. Her designs have been exhibited in trade shows in the U.S. and abroad including Surtex at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, High Point Textile Market in North Carolina , Heimtextil in Frankfort and Decosit in Brussels. |
Gloria has been an active participant in the D.C. art world since she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Hunter College in New York City and her Masters of Fine Arts from American University in Washington, D.C.. She was a docent at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and currently serves as a docent at the Kazen Art Center and Museum at American University. She was also a member of the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery, Group 93 at American University, and the Washington Project for the Arts where her paintings are exhibited online through the WPA website Art File.