Born in Wyoming, Elmer Page Turner was raised in Colorado. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago where he met his wife, Ila Mae McAfee. The couple married in Southern Colorado. They spent the next few years painting in Colorado and California where they worked on a mural for Los Angeles County Museum as well as completing several works depicting the California landscape and seascapes. In 1928, they settled in Taos, New Mexico. Turner spent the next few years painting the New Mexico landscape before a neurologic disorder caused paralysis, prematurely ending his career.