My former colleague, the film-maker Ann Turner, who has died aged 91, was likened by the art historian Kenneth Clark to a “senior tutor at a ladies’ college”. They met in the 1960s while making Civilisation, the first colour series for the BBC, for which Ann directed the fourth film, Art, The Measure of All Things, on the Florentine Renaissance.
In addition to that one film, she was responsible for gathering all the stills in the series, having learned how best to use close ups and camera movement. Clark said: “Ann may have been patronised by the series producer Michael Gill but she was the person on whose knowledge and organisation the series most depended.” It cannot have been easy for Ann to direct and take charge of an all-male film unit, but she did so with quiet authority.
The daughter of Terence Turner, a doctor, and his wife, Audrey, a gifted amateur artist and pianist (whose mother was the composer Laura G Lemon), Ann was born in Windsor, Berkshire. She went to Guildford high school for girls, then took a degree in history and English at the University of St Andrews. Her first job was at the Museum of Costume in Bath, for the historian Doris Langley Moore.
After moving to the BBC in 1952 she worked for the broadcaster Huw Wheldon as a researcher on Monitor, the first television arts series in the late 50s and early 60s, to which she contributed, among other things, items on British art at the Venice Biennale and the photographer Don McCullin.
In the 70s she was a director of two episodes of America: A Personal History of the United States, written and presented by Alistair Cooke, and of two films for the series Royal Heritage, on the art collections of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. In 1979 she directed Georges Seurat: Point Counterpoint, a portrait of the post-impressionist painter.
Ann always showed kindness and sensitivity to those with whom she worked and took genuine delight in their achievements.
In retirement from 1986, she lived at South Cerney, Gloucestershire, where she raised money for the National Art Fund, and made a short film about the village in which she lived.
Ann is survived by her second cousin, Daphne Peirse-Duncombe.
