Tif Hunter
AT ROBERT YOUNG ANTIQUES
16 October - 1 November 2025
Tif Hunter is a passionate photographer, whose career spans over 3 decades.
He has worked for advertising and editorial clients around the world and his images have won numerous creative industry awards.
A lover of the craft of making images with light, he has continuously explored a range of analogue photographic processes - most particularly wetplate collodion (a method invented in 1851).
Tif’s art practice uses this technique to make beautiful contemporary tintypes alongside his richly textured colour still lives, which have been exhibited in a number of galleries and institutions including the Royal Academy.
Galleries that have shown his work include Messums, Michael Hoppen Gallery, Purdy Hicks and The National Portrait Gallery. He has also been commissioned commercially to make tintypes by the likes of Toast, Hiut and Carluccio.
Living in Herefordshire, close to the Black Mountains, Tif continues to make work from his studio in a converted dutch barn called Black Barn Arts.
Higher Education - Christ Church Oxford (1974 - 1977)
From 1978 - 1984 Tif gained experience as an assistant to
numerous commercial photographers working in London.
From 1985, he started his own studio on Old St., London and
began a successful career as an advertising photographer
specialising in still life.
He moved his studio to a warehouse in Bermondsey in 1989 and
continued working for global clients creating images for
numerous award winning campaigns over the next 3 decades.
From the early 2000’s he also started to work much more on
personal projects and began an abiding love affair with early
analogue photographic processes. He has always had a
particular interest in the physical nature of the finished picture -
be it a digital or darkroom print as well as his unique tintype
photographs made on metal. Much of this personal work also
embraces the beauty of imperfection - the wabi sabi that exists
in the real world.
From 2020 Tif moved from Bermondsey to the Black Mountains
in Herefordshire and has exchanged the urban warehouse for
17th century agricultural stone barns. He continues to work on a
wide range of art projects as well as commissions.
Recent exhibitions include:
2016 - Group show (Negativeless) at Michael Hoppen Gallery
2017 - Group show at Messums Wiltshire
2019 - Group show at Messums Wiltshire
2020 - Solo tintype show at Messums Cork St
2020 - Work in Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2021 - Solo show at Messums York
2023 - Work in Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2023 - Group show (The Flower Show) at Purdy Hicks Gallery
2024 - Group show (Winter Exhibition) at Purdy Hicks Gallery
2024 - Group show (Food as Origin) at Twilight Contemporary