The Munnings Art Museum

This week spring has sprung at Castle House! Cherry blossom and daffodils have bloomed in the museum garden.

“This left-hand turning was the best of all our walks, for it led on to footpaths by spinneys, and in the spring a strong scent of violets pervaded one particular bank. This scent came from white violets. Why we should, each spring, go to that spot, anticipating the delicious smell, and why there should be intense excitement in plucking those rare and hidden flowers, I can’t imagine, but it was always the same each season. If I went there next spring, all the years in between would fade away”

Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950.

“Zennor, on the north coast of Cornwall, not far from St. Ives, was at that time a primitive and un-spoilt village.

…The morning after our arrival, the humble Ned, to the surprise of Mrs. Griggs, appeared in white cord breeches and top boots, and at about 9.30 a.m., riding Grey Tick, with a mackintosh to hide his scarlet coat, he came towards me up the hill where I was already planted with easel, canvas and box. This was a start. What could be better?  …A grey sky; a boulder, strewn hill, with flat spaces of grey granite showing amongst the heather-clad sides sloping down to the moor below. Beyond that undulating moors, fields and stone walls. Farther away, Guava Cairn, grey against the yet paler grey of the faint distant horizon beyond Morvah, and through all this the Land’s End road curving away out of sight. Coming up the hill with hounds was Ned on the grey, the scarlet coat in low tones, the black velvet cap the darkest note of colour a splendid subject.

…Another picture, was of Ned on the grey at the top of Zennor Hill near a hoary pile of granite rocks, which those who know Zennor and the moors will easily recall if ever they read this. The picture was called “An April Fox”.The whip is stationed at the top of the hill, from where he can see the country below, while lower down the hill are figures on foot, holding their hats in the air and pointing. The whip looks away into the country and the mare stands like a statue, her ears pricked. I worked looking into the April sunlight, which lit the back, loins and mane of the mare, surrounding Ned’s coat with a flaming, scarlet light.”

Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950.

“First, Anarchist, height sixteen and a half hands the best I ever rode a bold, clever, un- assuming and well-mannered horse, with a calm outlook on life. All jumps came alike to him, and he never gave me a fall. Bred in Normandy, schooled by a Saumur instructor, he was jumping more than six feet in French competitions as a four-year-old.

…Then Rufus, fifteen and a half hands, a strong, healthy brute, a chestnut with a white blaze and a head and crest like an Arab stallion one of the best. Cheena next, my wife’s old friend and companion. Sweet, kindly, long-suffering Cheena, with large ears, a kind eye and a beautiful forelock and mane. I love her. Then come two half-sisters, Winter Rose and Cherrybounce.

Dear Cheena, a Bay Hunter. 1943.

I bred these two from a Red Prince mare that my wife used to hunt in the Whaddon. The first, a lovely dark brown mare.

…Anyhow, I’ve ridden her and used her as a model since she was foaled sixteen years ago, and she has more quality and beauty than many of the swell winners I’ve painted.

Her half-sister, Cherrybounce, goes back on her sire’s side to Fowling-piece. A year younger than Rose, a big, upstanding bay, sixteen and a half hands, with a white star on her forehead, a strong back and loin, thick, curly mane and tail, and good constitution. She’s what you call a goer, and takes some holding; the best over a gate I’ve ever ridden.

…As one of many models, Cherrybounce has helped to run the show.

Cherrybounce

These five horses, with one called The Lizard, lent out, are all I have left of seventeen when war began. The rest are over the Styx now, but not enjoying a happier life, for they were happy with me. They could even choose their own paddocks.”

Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950.

My very first lithographic performance was a fretwork design on stone. I scraped out a mistake, making a hole like a grave in the stone’s surface. To my alarm, it was found out in the press room, a bare white patch showing on the black fretwork pattern, and the stone had to be re-polished, and I did the pattern all over again.

My lithographic work had grown, from year to year, more and more interesting. There may have been spasms of youthful rebellion and idleness.

As those years went on my designs must have brought a great deal of business to Page Bros. & Co., Ltd., of Norwich, for I often had more work handed to me than I could cope with. The manager might come with a packet of papers and ask me to leave what I was doing and get out a rough design at once, as it was urgent, so much so that unless it were done by tomorrow, some other firm which had already submitted quotations and designs for the advertising of the commodity might get the order. These often went to many thousands of copies. The design might be for lemonade chocolates mustard whisky pills even for poultry foods or election posters. Yet whatever I was then doing would have to be left, and the other started, which meant that I must stir up my imagination and think hard to get an idea something for printing in three or more colours, something effective and with good spacing. I always had a design ready, and more often than not the firm got the order.

Now and then I made a hit. One of my designs of that day was all over London on every hoarding just after 1918. It was for Caley’s Christmas Crackers … I realise that my School of Art training in the antique and life gave me advantages.

Another reason for being able to deal with these designs was that I continually went on from one thing to another, and became trained to invent and draw out of my head without the model.

Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950