Author(s): Robert Meyrick

Art

A farmer's son from Cheshire, British artist Charles Frederick Tunnicliffe (1901-79) won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in 1920. He went on to work in numerous mediums, his favored subject matter being Britain's native birds and other fauna, always depicted punctiliously and yet, unusually for the time, in their natural habitats. Renowned as the illustrator of the 1932 edition of Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter and numerous Brooke Bond tea cards (popular collector's items in Britain in the postwar period), Tunnicliffe lived on the Welsh island of Anglesey for more than 30 years. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1954. This handsome catalogue raisonne of his prints, over 430 in number, includes lavish illustrations and authoritative annotations by the printmaking authorities Robert Meyrick and Harry Heuser.