Woman with Floral Hat by Betty Turnbull (California, 1924-2010), watercolor and gouache on paper, signed, circa late 20th century, framed - 26" x 32 1/4"
 
Betty Turnbull was an important influence in the visual arts of California as the first curator of exhibitions for the Newport Harbor Art Museum (now the Orange County Museum of Art) and as a partner in the TLK Gallery in Costa Mesa. Born Betty Jean Hainey into a vaudeville family in 1924, she started in show business performing on stage with the Olsen & Johnson comedy team at age four; in the years 1935-43 she appeared in numerous films with stars such as Shirley Temple and Roy Rogers and on radio theatre programs. While raising two children Turnbull studied art, became a painter, and immersed herself in art history and the offerings of museums and galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities. In the 1960s, having moved with her family to Newport Beach, she drew on her visual art sensibility and theatrical staging savvy to create visually and aesthetically noteworthy exhibitions for the Newport Harbor Art Museum. Significant among the forty or more exhibitions Turnbull organized between 1968 and 1981 were "The Movie Show" (1969); exhibitions of Native American art (1968, 1971); mini-blockbuster shows of work by Edward Hopper (1973) and Mary Cassatt (1974); the cutting-edge installation shows "Sounds" (1975) and "Rooms" (1978); an early tribute to L.A.'s infamous Ferus Gallery in "The Last Time I Saw Ferus" (1975); major shows focusing on Orange County artists (1971, 1976, 1979, etc.); and in-depth retrospectives of work by Bay Area figurative painter David Park (1977) and Los Angeles artists George Herms, Vija Celmins (both 1979) and Patrick Hogan (1980). She also served as acting director of the museum from 1972-73.