Trained as a designer, Tunnard visited Cornwall in 1930 where he camped for five months and began to paint. He later rented a studio at Cadgwith on the Lizard Peninsula, where he was a coastguard during the second world war.

His work was influenced by abstract and Surrealist painting. It has a strong feeling for the forms of modern technology similar to that of the sculptor Naum Gabo who lived at St Ives during the war. This painting seems to suggest a post-war future of floarting, streamlined shapes and mystical flight.