John Tunnard

Tunnard moved to Cornwall in 1930 to run a hand-blocked printed silk business with his wife. He became a leading abstract painter in the 1930s and was partly influenced by Surrealism. From 1940-45 he served as a coastguard. His early work constantly revealed an interest in the minutiae of nature, but in the 1940s technological shapes entered his visual vocabulary. Semi-transparent forms and planes intersect like those in Naum Gabo's constructions. Here the title may refer to an imagined future engineering project. Or, with its overtones of triumph and victory, it may herald the end of the war.

Gallery label, August 2004

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