James Baare Turnbull

**James Baare Turnbull (1909–1976)** was an American painter, muralist, and sculptor known for his social realist depictions of American life and his later innovative wire sculptures. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he pursued a broad education that included the Missouri Military Academy, the University of Missouri, and Washington University before focusing on art at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Turnbull became deeply involved in the federal arts projects of the 1930s. He served as director of the Works Progress Administration’s arts project in Missouri in 1938 and created murals for post offices in Fredericktown and Jackson. His paintings from this period often addressed social themes, featuring sharecroppers, chain gangs, and miners; notable examples include his 1937 work *Chain Gang*. He also chaired the American Artists Congress and maintained a studio in Maplewood, Missouri.

During World War II, Turnbull served as a combat artist for the U.S. Army in the South Pacific. He participated in the landing at Lingayen Gulf during General MacArthur’s return to the Philippines and produced oils and watercolors of amphibious warfare now held in Defense Department archives, including works displayed at the Pentagon. After the war, he and his wife, sculptor Peter Keep Turnbull (née Keep), settled in the Woodstock artist colony in New York, where he joined the Woodstock Artists Association. In the 1950s he shifted to creating acclaimed wire mobiles and stabiles.

Turnbull’s legacy endures through his presence in major collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. His evolution from socially engaged realism to inventive sculpture reflects the breadth of mid-20th-century American art, and his WPA murals and wartime paintings remain important historical documents.