Just as the independent-spirited Tunnard himself resisted formal links with most artist groups, from the Surrealists in London in the 1930s to the Penwith Society of Arts in St Ives in the 1940s, so too does his enigmatic work resist explicit interpretation.
Tunnard preferred to work in isolation, something that is reflected in the people-less landscapes he created. His friend Rudolf Glossop recalled:
‘No one saw John when he painted, for then solitude was essential to him. The studio was quite apart, at Cadgwith in a fish loft on the edge of a cove, at Garden Mine Cottage in a hut on the moor…When painting he entered a state of concentration and absolute absorption such as one associates with philosophers and creative mathematicians…Once started, he worked with extraordinary energy and intensity. Then he would relax and go back to the cliffs and the moors.’