John Tunnard: Inner Space to Outer Space

Catalogue produced for the exhibition John Tunnard Inner Space to Outer Space at Pallant House Gallery from 13 March to 6 June 2010. Read more about the exhibition.

John Tunnard (1900-1971) emerged in the 1930s as one of the most individual abstract painters working in Britain. The collector Peggy Guggenheim called him a ‘genius’ and thought his paintings were ‘as musical as Kandinsky’s, as delicate as Klee’s and as gay as Miro’s’.

Written by the exhibition’s curator Simon Martin, with a chronology by Alan Peat and Brian Whitton, it also reprints a witty account of Tunnard’s character from the 1939 London Bulletin by his friend, the artist Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988). Featuring over 100 colour illustrations and drawing on new research, John Tunnard: From Inner Space to Outer Space, provides an overview of Tunnard’s creative output and reassesses the legacy of this fascinating and original artist.