Background

Tunnicliffe was born in Langley, Macclesfield, United Kingdom. He was the fourth surviving child of William, a tenant farmer, and Margaret Tunnicliffe.

Education

Charles Tunnicliffe spent his childhood on the farm at Sutton, where he saw much wildlife. He attended Sutton St. James' C.E. Primary School, and in 1916 he began his education at the Macclesfield School of Art. He won a scholarship, which allowed him to enter the Royal College of Art in London.

Career

Tunnicliffe produced about sixty etchings, mixed with aquatint, between 1926 and 1935. The artist's early works were mainly created for advertisements for veterinary products and animal food. However, his woodcuts in 1932 for Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson established his reputation. As a painter, he contributed works for the Ladybird series, Alison Uttley and H. E. Bates, as well as periodicals, including Country Life and the Radio Times.

In 1947 the painter moved from Manchester to a house called "Shorelands" at Malltraeth, on the estuary of the Afon Cefni on Anglesey, where he lived till the end of his days in 1979.

Charles Tunnicliffe's artworks were used to illustrate Brooke Bond tea cards, and as a result, they were seen by millions of young people in the United Kingdom during the 1950s and 1960s. Besides, he illustrated a number of books, such as the Ladybird books.

From March 1953, he painted many of the covers for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) magazine Bird Notes, as well as several for the later Birds magazines.

Achievements

• Charles Tunnicliffe was one of the most popular and expert naturalist artist-illustrators of his day. His artworks are still feasted with the Charles and Winifred Tunnicliffe Memorial Art Competition, which is held annually at Hollinhey Primary School, Sutton.
  
  He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 1975, and the Order of the British Empire in 1978. Charles Tunnicliffe became the subject of a 1981 BBC Wales television documentary, True to Nature, which was produced by Derek Trimby and narrated by Robert Dougall.
  
  His artworks are presented in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the Manchester Art Gallery, the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, among others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Waterfowl

  • Lady Amherst's Pheasants

  • Curlews And Turnstones

  • Barnacle Geese

  • Peacock Consorts

  • Coming In To Land

  • French Partridges

  • Pheasant Display

  • Cockerel In The Wind

  • Black-headed Gulls

  • Elliot's Pheasants

  • Goldeneye in a Snow Storm

  • Ring-neck Pheasants

  • Berwick Swans

  • Curlews Alighting

  • Pintails At Rest

  • Courting Pintails

  • Carmine Bee Eaters

  • Lanner

  • Goshawk

  • Chinese Geese

  • Rock And Roll

  • Alighting Whitefronts

  • Teal

  • Whoopers Touching Down

  • Green Gold And Dun

  • Canadas And Coots

  • Black Tailed Goodwits

  • Magpies

  • Company of Whitefronts

  • Storm Petrels

  • Gaggle At The Bar

  • Mandarin Ducks

  • Sparring Cockerels

  • Grey Herons

  • Blue Eared Pheasants

  • Leghorn Cockerel

  • Black Grouse

  • The Rivals

  • Grey Partridges

  • Fancy Pigeons

  • Gliders

  • White Turkey

  • Sandwich Terns

  • Juvenile Ruffs

  • Reeve's Pheasants

  • Puffin Colony

  • Owl on a Snowy Tree Trunk

  • In The Thorn Tree

  • Water Reflections

  • Geese and hoar-frost

  • Short-eared Owl

  • Gull Gallery

  • Fowl In A Damson Tree

  • Mallards And Magnolias

  • Buzzard In The Rain

  • Ringed Plovers

  • Snowy Owl

  • Black Swan Family

  • Tufted Ducks

Connections

Tunnicliffe got married to Winifred Wonnacott, a fellow art student, in 1929.

Father:

William Tunnicliffe

Mother:

Margaret Tunnicliffe

Spouse:

Winifred Wonnacott

References

• Charles Tunnicliffe: Prints, A Catalogue Raisonné This handsome catalogue raisonné of his prints, over 430 in number, includes lavish illustrations and authoritative annotations by the printmaking authorities Robert Meyrick and Harry Heuser.
  2017
• C. F. Tunnicliffe: Sketches of Bird Life First American Edition.
  1982
• Portrait of a Country Artist Charles Tunnicliffe R.A. 1901-1979 The piblication contains 160 pages: black & white, and colour illustrations, portraits, facsimiles.
  1980
• Tunnicliffe's Birds: Measured Drawings by C.F. Tunnicliffe Gathers detailed drawings of partridges, woodpeckers, doves, cuckoos, jays, herons, geese, ducks, and owls, and briefly describes the characteristics and behavior of each species.
  1984