Introduction to 'Second Nature: The Art of Charles Tunnicliffe RA'
Free talk
Saturday 30 September 2017 3 - 4pm
The Reynolds Room, Burlington House, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly
Free, booking required.
Friends of the RA book first
Second Nature: The Art of Charles Tunnicliffe RA
Join Professor Robert Meyrick, Head of the School of Art at Aberystwyth University, for an introduction to 'Second Nature: The Art of Charles Tunnicliffe RA'.
Charles Tunnicliffe RA is Britain’s foremost 20th-century wildlife artist. He first came to prominence as an etcher and engraver in the late 1920s and early 1930s, later becoming known for his prints – many of which were informed by his experience of growing up on a farm in Cheshire. His unsentimental representations of work on the land, of haymaking, pig slaughter and mucking out the cowshed, differ markedly from the nostalgic portrayals of rural England by contemporary etchers, whose pastoral vision was influenced by artists such as Samuel Palmer.
Tunnicliffe’s early recognition as a Royal College of Art-trained printmaker was soon overshadowed by his commercial success. Since the mid-1930s, his pictures have been appreciated mainly second-hand: as illustrations for books, in advertisements, or as decorations on biscuit tins and collectable cards. As a result, both his early etchings and the wood engravings he produced for popular novels such as Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson were never documented.
This talk by independent exhibition co-curator Professor Robert Meyrick coincides with the Charles Tunnicliffe exhibition and the Royal Academy of Arts’ publication of a catalogue raisonné of Tunnicliffe prints and serves as a reintroduction to an artist whose work has become more familiar than his name.
All unclaimed seats will be released at 2.55pm, no admittance after 3pm. There will be a returns queue from 2.30pm in De Grey Court.
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