John Tunnard

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Life

John Tunnard was born in Sandy, Bedfordshire, and educated at Charterhouse School. He studied design at the Royal College of Art (1919-1923). He married a fellow student, Mary May Robertson, in 1926.

In the 1920s he worked in various textile design jobs in Manchester — for Tootal, Broadhurst, Lee & Co, the carpet manufacturers, H&M Southwell, and John Lewis Partnership. He took up painting seriously in 1928, and taught design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, from 1929.

Ih 1931 he exhibited at the Royal Academy and with the London Group, which he joined in 1934. In 1933 the Tunnards moved to Cadgwith, Cornwall, where they ran a business making printed silks. From the mid-1930s, he became friends with Julian Trevelyan, Henry Moore, John Betjeman and Humphrey Spender.

He was a conscientious objector in World War II, working briefly as fisherman in 1939, then as an auxiliary coastguard for the duration of the war.

From 1945 to 1965 he taught at the Penzance School of Art. He exhibited again at the Royal Academy in 1960, and was elected as an Associate in 1967. He died in Penzance in 1971.Alan Windsor, "Tunnard, John Samuel (1900–1971)", "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/52062 accessed 3 July 2007] ]

Work

Tunnard's early works were fairly conventional. His first major exhibition, held in 1932 at the Redfern Gallery, featured landscapes, marine scenes and still life. From the mid-1930s, however, he began to paint abstract works influenced by the styles of Joan Miró and Paul Klee, and further embraced British surrealism on reading Herbert Read's "Surrealism". His works featured architectural and biomorphic forms combined with elements of constructivism. In his Self Portrait (now in the National Portrait Gallery, London) the artist depicts himself alongside an oversized insect.

Tunnard, along with painter Graham Sutherland was loosely termed British Neo-romanticism, continuing the tradition of British landscape, but with a modern sensibility.

In later life he became interested in space travel and entomology,*] when he depicted satellites and moonscapes in painting

Interest in his work diminished after his death in 1971. In 2000, there was a centenary exhibition at Durham University.

References

Further reading

*"John Tunnard: His Life and Work" by Alan Peat and Brian A. Whitton

External links

* [http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=14533&searchid=12166 Tate Gallery, London]
* [http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/collections/artisti/tunnard_bio.html Peggy Guggenheim Collection]
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp06023&rNo=0&role=art National Portrait Gallery London]
* [http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/search/Artist.asp?maker_id=105538 British Government art collection]
* [http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/artist/artist.aspx?id=18735 British Council collection]
* [http://www.dur.ac.uk/pr.office/Grey%20College%20Exhib.htm Centenary exhibition (2000)]