Dennis Turner, artist and book illustrator, 1924-2011.

Ray Richards advises that Dennis Turner, ex-pat New Zealand book illustrator, muralist and painter, died in London on Saturday, 6 August, shortly before his 87th birthday.
In the 1950s and 1960s Dennis illustrated a dozen popular books for AH & AW Reed, starting with TAVERN IN THE TOWN (1957) by James McNeish and THE BODGIE (1958) by Arthur Manning and THE CALTEX BOOK OF MAORI LORE (1958) by James Cowan.

In 1960 along came A GOOD KEEN MAN by Barry Crump, in which the whimsical and graphic illustrations by Dennis Turner, gave physical presence to Crump’s back country deer hunters and helped the book become the best-selling New Zealand novel of all time.  It was followed by HANG ON A MINUTE MATE, equally graphic in words and pictures.  The two books were then published in the double volume TWO IN ONE (1962).  ONE OF US (1962), THERE AND BACK (1963), SCRAPWAGGON (1965), GULF and A GOOD KEEN GIRL established the Crump-Turner partnership as the most profitable duo book-makers in New Zealand.

Also in 1963 Dennis Turner’s TANGI appeared, the book in which the large format illustrations were published without captions or words – just the powerful pictures of a family’s grief, a funeral, burial and tangi.

During the same period Dennis illustrated a dozen more books on Maori subjects and a sequence of educational books by A.W. Reed.

Dennis Turner regarded himself as primarily a painter and his works are scattered throughout New Zealand public galleries and museums.  His life and works have been researched by historian Richard Wolfe and a major retrospective exhibition is planned for several years ahead.