Painting 1942

Details

John Tunnard, A.R.A. (1900-1971)
Painting 1942
signed and dated 'John Tunnard/42' (lower right), signed again and inscribed 'Painting 1942/John Tunnard' (on a label attached to the backboard)
oil and tempera on gesso-prepared board
23½ x 36 in. (59.7 x 91.4 cm.)

Provenance

Dr H.G. Fenelon, by whom purchased at the 1942 exhibition.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 22 May 1996, lot 8, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

A. Peat & B. Whitton, John Tunnard His Life and Work, Aldershot, 1997, p. 161, no. 269.

Exhibited

London, Redfern Gallery, John Tunnard, July - August 1942, no. 30.
probably, Cairo & Algiers, British Council Exhibition, 1945.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Remarkably, Tunnard not only remained highly productive throughout the wartime, when he was working long shifts as a coastguard, but did some of his finest work then. Five of the wartime paintings are included in this sale. Painting 1942 is one of the major oils that he produced approximately every month or so. Like many of the paintings of this period, the horizon is very distinct, no doubt reflecting the hours he had to spend staring out to sea. The experience of being a coastguard increasingly shifted his work from the details of largely abstract studies to more panoramic ones giving an illusion of great distance. Painting 1942 shows a transition between the two.

B.W.

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