The Baltimore Museum of Art’s exhibition, BMA Celebrates MICA 200, celebrates the Maryland Institute College of Art’s (MICA) 200th anniversary. It draws from BMA’s collection to highlight the “breadth and depth of MICA’s programs across all media.” The exhibition runs through Jan. 3, 2027, and features 17 artists affiliated with MICA, including Grace Turnbull (1880-1976) who was raised in Bolton Hill. At the entrance, prominently displayed, is Turnbull’s sculpture “Figure Design,” a single nude figure created in 1937, a period when the Baltimore Sun declared she had achieved her best work (Sept. 21, 1980).
Turnbull grew up in the late 1800s in a cultured family residing in Beethoven Terrace, the then-group of 11 townhouses that makes up the present-day Beethoven Apartments. Turnbull’s father, Lawrence, edited the literary magazine The New Eclectic; her brother, Bayard, was an architect; her brother Percy was a musician who helped found the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; her sister Eleanor was a poet and translator; and her mother, Francese, was a novelist who founded the Women’s Literary Club of Baltimore.
Turnball herself was a poet, writer, painter, and sculptor. She attended MICA as an undergraduate, focusing on painting and drawing. In her late 40s, she turned to sculpture, studying at MICA’s Rhinehart School of Sculpture, and in Rome. In addition to “Figure Design” on view at the BMA, Turnball’s sculptures include “Naiad” (1932), located in East Mount Vernon Place; “The Good Shepherd” (1939), located on the former Eastern High School campus on 33rd Street; and “King Penguin” (1956), located on the west shore of the Inner Harbor.
Other artists in the BMA Celebrates MICA 200 exhibit include Joyce Scott, Grace Hartigan, Connie Imboden, Hugh Bolton Jones, Timothy App, and the MICA Pandemic Quilters. Cecilia M. McCormick, President of MICA, says of the exhibit, “Throughout our histories, MICA and the Baltimore Museum of Art have been intertwined. MICA artists rely on the art museum to inspire, educate, and serve as a home for their work. The BMA relies on the vibrant influx of creatives that our art and design college makes possible. The exhibition BMA Celebrates MICA 200 showcases the beautiful variety of art created by MICA alumni, students, staff, and faculty. Through their work, the artists illustrate how our two institutions have woven together over time.”
–Sallye Perrin
