Augustus Lunn


Henry Augustus Lunn was a British artist and art teacher, best known for works with tempera and large mural paintings.

Early life

Lunn was born in Liverpool in 1905, the son of George Henry Lunn, a clergyman, and his wife Blanche Edith Maude.

Career

Lunn studied at Kingston School of Art, and then won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, where he won the Edwin Abbey Mural Scholarship at the British School at Rome. He joined the staff at Kingston, but also undertook private commissions. He is regarded as one of the leading figures in the revival of tempera painting in Britain. He exhibited in the New English Art Club and the Royal Academy. In 1943 he applied to the War Artists' Advisory Committee to be a war artist, but was rejected. There was a solo exhibition of his work in 1985, the year before his death, at the Michael Parkin Fine Art Gallery in London.

Selected works

Lunn is barely represented in public art collections. Art UK lists just three works: Composition in the Jerwood Collection, Fish in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery, and Objects Observed on a Beach in the Government Art Collection.
Many more works are held in private collections. Works sold at recent auctions have included Organic Elements sold by Bonhams in 2005, Pavilion by the Sea, Lowestoft sold by Christie's in 2008 Gale Warning sold by Christie's in 2006, Jacob's Dream sold by Christie's in 2010 Tower on a Hill in a Brooding Landscape sold by John Nicholsons in 2020; Other works in private hands include Christ Expelling the Money Changers and House under Construction.
His sgraffito mural paintings are his best-known works.
He married Alice Inez Dawson in 1932. They had one daughter, Blanche. She married Richard Pemberton in 1961, but died the following year. Lunn died in 1986.