Turner Carroll Gallery History
Turner Carroll Gallery + Art Advisors is committed to exhibiting emerging to established museum collected artists from all over the world. Turner Carroll was founded in 1991 by Tonya Turner Carroll and Michael Carroll, both of whom have extensive experience in galleries, museums, and auction houses, as well as degrees in the history of art. Turner Carroll and Carroll have handled artist estates, written artist monographs, served on boards of art museums and foundations, and served as independent curators and art advisors for corporations, hotels, and art museums.
The vision of the gallery since its inception is to source significant artwork of our era from diverse areas of the world. The gallery is constantly considering the new international art movements/developments which presuppose historical significance, and the gallery owners travel extensively to curate exhibitions for the gallery from other parts of the world. Thus far, the gallery has featured important contemporary exhibitions from Romania, Ireland, France, Russia and Mexico.
Turner Carroll is dedicated to establishing a context and place in the history of art for the artists it represents. Turner Carroll is in conversation with museum, private, corporate, and academic members of the art world, about exhibition opportunities that challenge its artists creatively while exposing geographically and culturally diverse populations to their works. Some of the museum permanent collections which feature works by Turner Carroll artists include Russian Academy of Art Foundation, The Vatican Museum (contemporary collection), Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Modern Art (New York), The British Museum, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
We proudly represent the following Contemporary Artists: Jenny Honnert Abell, John Barker, Jamie Brunson, Squeak Carnwath, Fausto Fernandez, Traian A. Filip, Josh Garber, Raphaelle Goethals, Scott Greene, Orlando Leyba, David Linn, Hung Liu, Alan Magee, Georges Mazilu, Mavis McClure, Igor Melnikov, Greg Murr, Deborah Oropallo, Rex Ray, Holly Roberts, Walter Robinson, Suzanne Sbarge, Rusty Scruby, Shawn Smith, Drew Tal, Nina Tichava, Ann Weiner, Karen Yank, Brenda Zappitell, Eric Zener, Wanxin Zhang.
Michael E.S. Carroll
Owner
A 1988 graduate of the history department at Duke University, Michael was, along with his wife Tonya, the co-founder of the Turner Carroll Gallery in 1991. He brings a historical perspective to curating Turner Carroll exhibitions. Michael studied the arts at Duke, in New York City, in Moscow and in St. Petersberg. He was a two-term, past president of the Santa Fe Gallery Association, and was twice named one of the 40 most influential New Mexicans under 40 years of age. In addition, he has helped raise several hundred thousand dollars for arts education through the SFGA’s charity arm, Art Smart. Michael is frequently asked to lecture on topics like artist-gallery relations, and he continues to serve on several boards.
When Eastern Europe underwent historic changes economically and politically in the late 1980s, Michael designed curatorial trips and exhibitions around these themes.
Tonya Turner Carroll
Owner
A 1989 graduate with Honors from the Art History Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Tonya was awarded the prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship for her studies in the history of art at UNC. Along with her husband Michael, she was the co-founder of the Turner Carroll Gallery in 1991. Tonya previously worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Israel Museum, and Sotheby’s London. She studied Italian art and language at Stanford’s Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Turner Carroll received the Raoul Wallenberg Scholarship to study at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where she focused her research on Ancient Near Eastern art, art as propaganda, and art for social change.
Tonya Turner Carroll advises private collectors and corporate clients on art acquisitions, assisting them in research, value estimations, and collecting. She has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art for museums, art centers, and cultural centers in the U.S. and abroad. Among them, Hung Liu: Women Warriors, at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Others include numerous exhibitions of contemporary Mexican artwork at the Four Seasons Resort Cultural Center in Punta Mita, Mexico; and Mexican contemporary art at St. Regis Punta Mita Resort’s Cultural Center. With husband, Michael Carroll and their children, Turner Carroll created Arte Mita, an organization bringing international artists together with school children of different countries. Via youth art sales, Arte Mita has helped form art programming at schools in Sayulita and Punta de Mita, Mexico, as well as in New Mexico and the Navajo Nation.
Turner Carroll and husband Michael Carroll wrote the definitive monograph on Romanian contemporary artist Traian Alexandru Filip, which won a small press book award upon publication. She has also authored several articles, blogs, and catalogue essays on contemporary art and artists. Turner Carroll has served on the boards of the Santa Fe Gallery Association and Friends of Contemporary Art for the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. She currently serves on the Governing Board of 516 Arts, a contemporary museum in Albuquerque, as well as the aM Contemporaries Council of the Albuquerque Museum.
Art Advisory and Curatorial Services for Private and Public Collectors
Turner Carroll works closely with all levels of public and private collectors, in both the U.S. and internationally. Turner Carroll takes an art historical approach to helping collectors visualize their aesthetic and intellectual desires for their collection, presenting artworks to them which not only meet their objectives, but which expose them to new ideas and opportunities, as well. Turner Carroll prides itself in establishing long term relationships with collectors purchasing works through the gallery, helping them express their artistic interests coherently, through a carefully curated collection. Turner Carroll offers art advisory services from concept development and sourcing sought after artworks, to art education, research, studio visits, acquisition, and de-accessioning.
Over the decades, Turner Carroll has worked as independent curator with such museums as the Sangre de Cristo Art Center (Pueblo, Colorado), and Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (Kalamazoo, Michigan). Corporate clients Turner Carroll has advised include the Four Seasons Resort (Punta Mita, Mexico); Sidley Law Firm (Dallas, Texas); La Posada de Santa Fe, a Rock Resort (Santa Fe, New Mexico); and The St. Regis (Punta Mita, Mexico).
Gallery Affiliations
