Round Top Folk Art Fair & Creative Market

Meet Emma Lee Turney

In 1959, Emma Lee Turney began a unique company to produce and manage antiques shows and special events in Texas and the South. Her first show, presented outdoors on a three-acre historical site, was in Life Magazine, an auspicious beginning for a unique career. During the 1960s and 70s, she managed antiques and art shows in New Orleans, Jackson, Mississippi and throughout Texas. Since the beginning, her productions have been featured in major magazines, newspapers and television such as Country Home, Country Living, Southern Living, Texas Highways, The Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Los Angeles Times, Maine Antiques Digest, Antiques & The Arts Weekly, Antiques Review, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Enquirer, Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine, USA Today, Houston House & Home, Antique Gazette, Northeast Antiques, Southern Antiques, New York Almanac, Treasure Chest, West Coast Peddler, Antiques Collectors Journal, Kitty Bartholomew's ABC Home Show from Los Angeles, Charles Osgood's CBS News Sunday Morning, an interview by Bob McNamara, a National Geographic magazine television show and Mary Emmerling's country design show on HGTV.

She is the author of more than 160 articles on antiques and trends in collecting. In 1968, she wrote the first manual on how to participate in antiques and art shows as well as how to produce, direct and manage exhibitions and shows.

In 1978, Turney published her first book, Antiques Business as a Lifestyle, the how-to's of opening an antiques business, finding sources, and a step-by-step look at importing antiques from abroad. Now out-of-print, the book sold nationwideas well as in Canada, France, Spain, England and the Netherlands.

In the early 1980s, she published a monthly trade publication, Southwest Antiques News, covering antiques shows, sales and shops in Texas and the Southwest. She has imported antiques from England and Canada and has been a shopkeeper in the past both in Houston and Round Top. A noted authority in many areas of antiques collecting, her private collection focuses on American Indian art in basketry, rugs and pottery as well as early toys and folk art.

In the late 1960s, before others discovered value in rustic properties, Turney became active in the restoration of mid-19th century Texas houses near tiny Round Top, Texas. In short order, she had moved five early houses onto her land and restored them. In the late 70s, she lived in one of the farm houses for three years. This farm house, gardens and pastures were restored a second time and later sold. She returned to Houston (and Kinko's!) to better function in the antique show management business.

In 1968, Emma Lee founded the original Round Top Antiques Fairs, held twice a year for nearly 40 years. On the 20th anniversary of the show, the Department of Architecture at the University of Houston and the Texas Pioneer Arts Foundation honored Turney for her achievements at a reception and presentation ceremony at restored Henkel Square in Round Top. She has been further honored by three Texas Governors for the economic impact her shows have had in the State as well as the region, is a member of Who's Who in American Women, The World Who's Who, published in Cambridge, England, and Who's Who in the South and Southwest.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary, Turney published Denim & Diamonds, The Story of the Round Top Antiques Fairs, an instant best seller among collectors and dealers alike. In 2002, she published Round Top Cooks with Emma Lee, a compilation of recipes submitted by dealers and fans of the shows. On the 35th anniversary of the show, accolades came from collectors, antiques dealers, friends, magazine editors and Chambers of Commerce throughout the area. Texas Power Magazine's 1,000,000 subscribers voted the Original Round Top Antiques Fair 'the most of the most and best of the best."

And in 2005, she sold the Round Top Antiques Fairs to Bo & Susan Franks, longtime show producers who had exhibited with her in the early days. Not understanding the word 'retirement,' Turney retained ownership of the Round Top Folk Art Fair and Creative Market, presented at the same time as the traditional Antiques Fairs. With the Spring 2006 show, she built a new Folk Art Show Barn to better present her cadre of artisans from near and far.