Although he is perhaps best known as a sculptor, Turnbull made paintings and sculpture simultaneously throughout his career. His paintings were, however, at the forefront of European post-war abstraction. In 1957 Turnbull had disposed of the subject (usually ‘heads’) in his paintings and had shifted to abstraction. ‘15-1958’ (the fifteenth painting the artist made in 1958) contains intense colour and expressive brushwork, reducing painting to two of its key elements. Turnbull was one of the first European artists to learn from the example of American abstract expressionist painters such as Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko.