John Tunnard

Workshop
1959
Oil on gesso on board
14¾ x 26¼ ins (37.6 x 66.5 cms)

Signed and dated August 1959

A. Peat and B. Whitton, 'John Tunnard, His Life and Work', Scolar Press, Aldershot, 1997, p. 191, no. 718

Naum Gabo's presence in St Ives is felt through Tunnard's semi-transparent planes and intersecting scaffolding in Workshop. The title suggests the artist as an engineer, rather than a painter being closeted from reality in his studio. Like his abstract contemporaries, Tunnard is pushing the boundaries of a painting's physical make-up. He builds up gesso layers into textures, using different surfaces for different areas of the painting.

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