Alfred Munnings

Sir Alfred Munnings was known as one of Britain’s finest painters of horses, and an outspoken enemy of Modernism. He became quite wealthy, as his paintings were collected by the Royal family and the high society. Munnings attended the Norwich School of Art and then became a full-time painter.

Between 1912 and 1914, Munnings was a member of the Newlyn School, an artists’ colony in Cornwall, where he lived alongside fellow painters Dame Laura Knight and her husband, Harold. Munnings met his first wife Florence Carter Wood (1888–1914), who first tried to kill herself on their honeymoon and then did so in 1914. He was then remarried in 1920 to Violet McBride. During World War I he was an official war artist painting horse scenes in battles. Munnings was elected president of the Royal Academy of Art in 1944, and was awarded a knighthood the same year. His desire to make his paintings accessible after his 1959 death resulted in Lady Munnings opening Castle House to the public in 1961.

Munnings participated in three Olympic Games in the Art Competitions (1928, 1932 and 1948) with several paintings. HRH the Prince of Wales on Forest Witch shows the later King Edward VIII as Prince of Wales on his horse Forest Witch. The 1921 painting was also distributed as a lithograph. When pieces from the late Edward’s Paris home were auctioned, the painting fetched the highest price ever paid for a Munnings’ painting in 1998, $2.3 million US. In the Morning, actually Early Morning on Manton Downs, was painted in 1926 in oil on canvas (76 x 101.5 cm.). The painting is shown in the 1928 catalog and was auctioned at Christie’s in 2011 for about 1.4 million euros. The painting was commissioned by Waldorf Astor and depicts the successful racehorse Short Story and his trainer Alec Taylor riding the gray Alberta on a morning ride near Marlborough in Wiltshire.

In the early 1920s, Major Thomas Bouch, Master of the Belvoir Hounds, invited Munnings to visit Woolsthorpe to make a series of paintings of the dogs in his pack. This portrait Major T. Bouch and the Belvoir Hounds was painted during this visit. The following two works were probably also created during this stay. Morning at the Kennels is probably identical to The Belvoir Hunt - Hunting Morning at the Kennels. A very similar painting, however, is Belvoir Kennels. Since Hounds was also owned by Major Bouch in 1928, this painting may be actually Belvoir Hounds Exercising in the Park. There are also numerous prints of these original oil paintings on the market, some signed.

His painting for the 1932 art competitions was, according to the catalog, titled Shooting Party in Field of Turnips. Originally, however, the painting was called Shooting Party in Field of Swedes. Both plants are different species of turnips.

In 1948. Alfred Munnings exhibited a total of 25 paintings, but according to the catalog only one of them in the competition. This was Steeplechase - Going Down to the Start in oil on canvas (62.2 x 83.8 cm). Not in the competition was H.R.H. The Princess Royal on Horseback, painted around 1922 as a gift for Princess Mary, depicted on her grey horse Portumna. In 1931, this painting was exhibited in the Royal Academy show. In Mary’s possession in 1928 was also The Huntsman Short with Whips, which, however, could not be identified. In the saddling paddock, March meet, Cheltenham was a 1947 oil painting (101.6 x 158.1 cm), based on some very similar studies. Also reproduced in the 1948 catalog is Their Majesties’ Return from Ascot from 1925, now in the Tate Gallery (oil on canvas, 148 x 244.5 cm).

Another 20 paintings by Munnings were exhibited in 1948. These were all preliminary studies for other paintings. Since there were often several studies for the same paintings and therefore identification by title is hardly possible, the Study of Hunter Cherry Bounce included in the exhibition catalog is a representative example. Cherry Bounce was a bay mare owned by Alfred Munnings. In 1943 he had two poems privately printed under the title Old Brandy and Cherry Bounce - A Ballad of Exmoor, Colchester as a small volume of 17 pages, which he apparently gave away to friends and acquaintances. He himself also contributed the illustrations. The other studies were painted in oil on wood panels between 1936 and 1948 in sizes of 25-40 cm x 40-60 cm. Most of them are in the possession of the Munnings Art Museum.