Helen Maria Turner (November 13, 1858 – January 31, 1958) was an American painter and teacher known for her work in oils, watercolors and pastels in which she created miniatures, landscapes, still lifes and portraits, often in an Impressionist style.

[3] Her mother died in 1865 after a long illness;[3] her father's death when she was thirteen left her in the care of a widowed uncle in New Orleans who lived in "genteel poverty".

[3] Initially self-taught, she began taking free classes offered by Tulane University, continuing under the tutelage of Andres Molinary and Bror Anders Wikström; she also studied at the Artists' Association of New Orleans.

[3] The death of her uncle in 1890 meant that she had to support herself, and she took a position teaching art at St. Mary's Institute, a girls' school in Dallas, Texas, beginning in 1893.

[3] She moved to New York City in 1895, for further study[5] and attended the Art Students League (where she was accepted despite being, at thirty-seven, beyond the age limit for admittance),[4] Cooper Union and Columbia University; her teachers included Arthur Wesley Dow,[6] Kenyon Cox, William Merritt Chase and Douglas Volk.

[2] Turner traveled with Chase and his class to Italy in 1904, 1905, and 1911,[4] but otherwise appears to have shown scant interest in studying abroad, unlike other American Impressionists.

[3] She exhibited widely as well, showing at the New York Water Color Club, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the American Society of Miniature Painters at the National Academy of Design in New York City, and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C, and being included in the exhibit Six American Women organized by the City Museum of St.