John Tunnard 1900-1971
Painter of abstracts, landscapes and marines in gouaches and oils; textile designer. Son of J.C. Tunnard, he studied design and the RCA from 1919-23, and worked as a textile designer from 1923-9. In 1926 he married Mary Robertson and in 1929 he started to paint, visiting Cornwall in 1930-2 and moving there in 1933. He exhibited first at the RA (becoming ARA in 1967), and at the London Group where he exhibited regularly and became a member in 1934. His first solo exhibition was at the Redfern Gallery, London in 1933 and he continued to exhibit in London galleries, including the Guggenheim Jeune and McRoberts & Tunnard Ltd. His work was included in various Surrealist exhibitions of the later 1930s and thereafter in many shows of contemporary British art and in the 1940s his work began to appear in New York. He also exhibited in Europe and his work is included in public collections. He taught design at the Central School, London, and from 1948 at the Penzance School of Art.
His interest in jazz and in natural history was reflected in his work which early in his career was romantic Cornish landscape executed in a vigorous, rhythmic manner. During the 1930s his work was influenced by abstraction, constructivism and surrealism, and in particular the example of Miro. He used imaginative forms set in an illusory space, and from the 1940s these forms reflected an interest in technology, and, in the 1960s, the exploration of space. His work combined modernity, technological forms and the forms of the natural world.
Lit:
Retrospective exhibition catalogue, RA, 1977
‘ John Tunnard’ , Alan Peat and Brian A Whitton, Scolar Press, 1997
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