The Munnings Art Museum

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

“Dates fail me, but it must have been either in the late summer of 1910 or 1911 that my friend Stones and I journeyed by Sea to Cornwall. For years we had known of the famous Newlyn School, and were curious to see this country which attracted artists.

…Our east-to-west journey, taking us to the far end of Cornwall, was a complete change to an East Anglian like myself. At that time I had not even see Stonehenge. The district of south-west Norwich which embraced the Swainsthorpe environment was well-timbered. The prevailing hedgerow trees were oaks, their foliage partially embowering lanes and small hamlets. Many farms were set amongst oak trees, and any farm of importance had, as a distinguishing feature, an ancient oak standing in the middle of its home pasture by the house, underneath which generations of cart-horses had stood on summer Sundays for centuries.

…From all this rich, Norfolk farming country – these vistas of hedgerow-oaks and elms, woodlands, cornfields and low meadows – I found myself in a land of stone walls and tall, stone-faced banks covered with wild flowers and purple foxgloves, which seeded themselves and grew in profusion. Scrubby woods grew on hillsides, trees flourished in the valleys, and only windswept, stunned specimens braved the blasts upon the uplands. It was a wild, almost treeless, stone-walled country, with dairy cows grazing everywhere.

…Such scenery was entirely new, and even more so, the sight and sound of the band of white, moving surf, six hundred feet below, at the foot of steep-pinnacled granite cliffs, which on some great headland stood like castles above the restless surging of the Atlantic ground-swell.

No words can describe these scenic effects. On an August or September day, to lie on the sweet-smelling turf, watching sea-pinks trembling in the winds, and listening to the unceasing sound of the surf and the cry of gulls, gives peace and rest to body and soul. Nothing quite like this coast exists anywhere. There were spots where I could laze and be idle in Norfolk, but of all places, on the right day, I find myself more often longing to be back in those Cornish cliffs, lying in the sun, listening to the incessant sound of the surf.

Having met artists and friends there, I repeated this first visit for a period and worked there, returning to winter in Swainsthorpe.

My last and longest stay finally ended in the 1914 war. Little did painting folk in the friendly colony dream of that future.”

Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950.

“Hunting became part of my life, and I saw many things on those days: bright winter sunlight on clipped horses and scarlet coats; on bare trees; stacks; on farmhouse gables; the riding out after a slight frost; the riding home with a frost beginning and a young moon in the sky; puddles already crisping over as I said good night to friends. Such were needed to freshen my mind and vision.

The Hunt, 1905, watercolour, private collection
copyright the estate of Sir Alfred Munnings

Here is another kind of day I remember, it was in February; I still wanted another water-colour to make up my six for the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Exhibition. That morning, full of hope, I was going out hunting, but seeing the bright sun with early spring in the air, I resisted the urgent desire to go to the meet. Dashing up to my bedroom, I was soon into my old clothes, to the disappointment of George, who was always glad to send me on my way to a hunt.

“Get Rebecca saddled, George, and get out the scarlet coat and cap,” said I in haste.

Hurrying to the studio, I bustled around, gathering easel and water-colours., and marched out to the fray, to my “hidden spot “, where the scarlet wasn’t seen from the road. George was ready to get up on to the glossy, clipped-out mare, each looking the part. I remember his pose his right hand was resting on the rump of the mare as he turned, looking back, pretending to be a whipper-in calling to tail hounds.

Huntsman in Cover, 1908, watercolour, private collection
copyright the estate of Sir Alfred Munnings

Soon I had composed, started, and was well on the way to finishing the picture. It was bright, fresh, and looking well by one o’clock. After two o’clock I was out again, completing background, bare trees, fields and distance, as they appeared with the horse and rider. Between 3 and 4 p.m. I had finished with ease, and was full of a sense of satisfaction, with hands growing cold, as two friends on horseback came riding along a headland on an adjoining field.

The result of this day’s work was cheering to a poor painter dependent on the brush for his living. Behold, in the Spring, on just such a bright morning, a dear old maiden lady, a neighbour, had looked in to ask me to supper with herself and bachelor brother. The letters had just come. I opened them. Two were from the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, in one of which the Secretary informed me of the sale of three works. I shouted “Hurrah !”, and so did the old maid. Then I opened the other one, and read the usual notice: “Your drawing, number so and so, has been purchased by” But what was this? I looked and looked “Queen Alexandra”. Could such things be? I read and shouted it to the old lady, and rushed out to the stables to tell George, with Miss Irons that was her name rushing out, too. “Seize my coat behind, or I’ll go up in smoke !” I cried, and she seized my coat, holding on and crying, “Whoa, Alfred !”, as I called George, and went to take a look at the placid Rebecca as she gazed out of the door. She certainly had earned her keep for a while, for the picture had sold for the vast amount of twenty-five guineas !”.

Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950

Hunting Morn, 1913, oil on canvas, the Munnings Art Museum
copyright the estate of Sir Alfred Munnings

“Of all my painting experiences, none were so alluring and colourful as those visits spent amongst the gypsy hop-pickers in Hampshire each September. More glamour and excitement were packed into those six weeks than a painter could well contend with. I still have visions of brown faces, black hair, earrings, black hats and black skirts; of lithe figures of women and children, of men with lurcher dogs and horses of all kinds. I still recall the never-ceasing din around their fires as the sun went down, with blue smoke curing up amongst the trees. I think of crowded days of work too swiftly gone.

A Gypsy Ecampment, private collection
copyright the estate of Sir Alfred Munnings

Gypsies and Greyhounds, 1913, private collection
copyright the estate of Sir Alfred Munnings

… Never in my life have I been so filled with a desire to work as I was then. The families that I got to know had picturesque children, dogs and horses. The women had, somewhere in the back of each caravan, great black hats
with ostrich feathers, laid away for gala days, or to be worn when selling baskets or brushes on the road.

… at the end of the picking I stayed on to see the actual and real “departure of the hop-pickers”. This might be described as a classic sight. It was indeed! One after another, large and small,, rolling, creaking caravans, with their straining, pulling horses, came out of that meadow, turned sharp to left or right, and went on their way.

Departure of the Hoppickers, 1913, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
copyright the estate of Sir Alfred Munnings

The Green Wagon, 1920, private collection
copyright the estate of Sir Alfred Munnings

It was a morning of men shouting at horses, and an incessant rumbling away in the distance. Like a ship at sea, a caravan came pitching over the uneven ground, the father leading the horse, the wife leaning out of the half-door, holding the reins; children’s faces looking over the door, some youngsters sitting on the shafts, others running behind. Poultry slung in large crates or cages between the back wheels. Heavily laden, lurching in the wake of others, and joining in the procession, taking the westward route, all caravans and carts cleared the meadow that day. Many had been leaving, but this final exodus left the scarred, wide pasture empty; silent as the grave. There was nothing left to work for. I packed up my pictures in the old paper-mill and the next morning took them all to Alton station in a four-wheeled cab, and travelled back to Cornwall.”

Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950

On one side of the lane that summer there was a field of pink clover in full bloom, and bees went to and fro across it from their hives in the orchard of the farm. This mill lane curved downhill to the right; trees became fewer towards the end, where there was a gate. Here the left-hand bank and fence ended. The way went along through a narrow meadow which sloped down to the straight stream, bordered with poplars, above the mill. Its quiet-flowing current was fringed with patches of water-moss on either side. Lily leaves reflected the sunlight, and anchored upon the surface were the precious yellow lilies themselves… With box, easel and canvas ready, there was only one thing, to paint the river. In those days this river had all its mills working. Life was there, and the water-way had its uses, making it a paradise to the artist.

Suffolk Pastoral, with the river Dove and clover field, 1909, private collection on loan to the Munnings Art Museum

Summer Afternoon on the Wensum, 1909, private collection 

It was memories of the vista looking across from above the mill-stream, with distant poppy-fields, which led me away to this story. And now I think of afternoons in a boat, taken from near the wooden bridge by the mill, with a paintable girl for company, and how we used to row down through dark-shadowed curves of deep river with the sound of poplar leaves above, pattering always like rain. Tall reeds whispering in a breeze that ruffled the river’s surface in steely smudges. Shaped masses of clouds, which form on sultry days, made light and shade, and cattle and horses stood under the trees on the banks.

The rival to painting, the girl sits with the tiller-cords in her lap. I am rowing. She looks ahead from under a wide straw hat, light from the ripples reflected up into her face. Sunlight falls on the shady hat and pink dress; and the river in the shadows, with glitter on the lily-leaves and water-moss, is the background behind her.

There are always things to paint when we leave our paint-boxes at home. There sits the model; the discarded box, brushes and easel should be with us too.

Idle Moments, 1906, private collection

The September afternoon draws to its close… The after-glow spreads upwards and fades; mists are rising; delicate traceries of willow-leaves are patterned against the light; late warblers sing in the reeds as we pass along the mill-
stream to the sound of dipping oar and moving rowlocks. Tranquil hours have passed, and sure enough there is ahead of us the pale, ghost-like, whitened form of the miller’s man, who stands waiting for his craft to return. As he holds the boat, and I step ashore, turning to give her a helping hand, I see a low-toned, pale-pink figure stepping across against a background of liquid gold, striped and barred with long, dark, moving lines of reflections a picture momentarily seen, and never forgotten.

Evening at Hoxne, 1909, private collection

Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950

Read more about Munnings love of painting the river with books published by the museum

Meeting a landlord who looked like one and just a ride had opened up a new world with fresh ideas. My first short stay at the Falcon was only a feeler for my future painting on Ringland Hills, a mere beginning, a foretaste of things to come.

Shrimp on a White Welsh Pony, 1910, the Munnings Art Museum

Already I had arranged matters with Drake, who often stayed with his family and caravan near the Bush Inn in Costessey, an establishment of lesser fame a haunt of harpies of the lower world, connected with the trotting fraternity of Norwich. Dependent on Drake to supply ponies, horses or figures, I was full of resolutions, boiling over, impatient to begin straight away at Costessey and on Ringland Hills, making pictures out-of-doors, in the right environment, with the models I needed.

Thw Falcon Inn, Costessey, 1910, private collection

Here was a lucky start, full of possibilities the landlord, the place, the river, the hills, the gorse beginning to bloom ; horses, ponies and, above all, Shrimp, that utterly uneducated, wild, ageless youth, who slept underneath Drake’s caravan. When not wanted, he lay on the dusty ground or grass (each came alike to him), smoked cigarettes, and played with the lesser dogs, lurchers and children. He was a good bare-back rider and sly as a fox. On my instruction Shrimp had gone to Norwich, to a tailor in Dove Street who made clothes for the fraternity, to be measured and fitted for the usual cut of tight cord trousers and black-fronted, sleeve waistcoat a garment of the past, a Georgian relic. Cut long, with drabbet sleeves and back, a black cloth Front with step collar, deep pocket-flaps and black pearl buttons, it was useful and picturesque. Shrimp, thus attired, with a yellow handkerchief round his neck, was a paintable figure. At a fair or market, with customers around, Shrimp, in this guise, ready and waiting, with halters slung round his shoulders, would receive his commands. The voice of Drake would be heard: “Go in there, boy, and git that bay colt”.

Shouldering into that crowded herd of wild Welsh ponies, Shrimp, borne off his feet in the crush, reached and flung his arms round the unruly, rearing colt. Haltering it at last, with the long halter-rope in his grasp he struggled clear, and other hefty fellows seizing the rope, the plunging victim was hauled from the mob.

Ponies in a Sandpit, 1909, the Munnings Art Museum

Campfire and Caravan, 1910, the Munnings Art Museum 

I grew to like Shrimp. My memories of him are touched with regret, thinking how much I could have done for him. But I console myself with the reflection that my last gesture to him was to present him with the dun-coloured horse and blue caravan which, shortly afterwards, was to be added to my painting properties.