Biography for John Tunnard

Education

Studied design at the Royal College of Art from 1919 to 1923.

Member

Elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1971.

Employment

Tunnard became a professional designer, chiefly of textiles, but gave up commercial work in 1929 for painting. He continued to teach design part-time at the Central School. His work became increasingly abstract, and he exhibited in a number of surrealist exhibitions in the late 1930s; in 1942 a large painting, 'Construction', was bought by the Tate Gallery. During the war he served as an auxiliary coastguard in Cornwall, where he had lived since 1933, and in 1953 he moved to Dame Laura Knight's former home in Lamorna.