Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S.

G. Blair Laing, Toronto, 1958;
Private collection

STRUCTURE The canvas has been relined and is sound. The paint surface is in good overall condition with good impasto; clean and ready to hang. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT UV light reveals one tiny fleck of infilling to craquelure in the lower right corner, otherwise good original condition. FRAME Held in a plaster gilt frame in good condition. For more information regarding this picture please contact the Victorian & Edwardian Pictures Department on +44 (0)207 293 5718
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The present work is one of a series painted by Munnings during protracted visits to Cornwall from 1910 until the First World War.  The sitter is almost certainly Ned Osborne, whom Munnings described as '...a primitive Cornish Youth.  Ned was the name of the simple soul, who grew into a useful combination of groom-model, and posed for many a picture' (Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist's Life, 1950, p.272-273).  Ned sits astride the grey hunter, Grey Tick, '...a good sort, which I took in to keep off a farm' (ibid. p.273).  Zennor is on the North Coast of Cornwall, between St. Ives and St. Just; this unspoilt and largely undiscovered landscape appealed greatly to Munnings, 'Being in granite country, where the soil was shallow, huge masses of stone were built into walls...Great stones of strange shapes stood near the houses on either side of the brow of the hill where the road leads to St. Ives.  In fact, this was a most picturesque and primitive place' (ibid. p.275). 

By 1910 the Newlyn colony of artists were well established and their French influenced, rural naturalism was one of the most significant artistic movements in the country.  Munnings had been exposed to their work during several short childhood holidays and although the landscape differed greatly from his native East Anglia, he identified strongly with their earthy, unaffected, en plein air style.  In 1911 he rented a room at Beer House in Newlyn; two of his fellow lodgers were Harold and Laura Knight who had arrived in Newlyn four years earlier.  Munnings threw himself into the social life of the colony, his boisterous nature prompted disapproval from many of his contemporaries, including Harold Knight.  In contrast, Laura thought he was wonderful, 'I could not take my eyes of him.  He was the stable, the artist, the poet, the very land itself!  I adored everything about him. (Jean Goodman, What a Go!, 1988, p.103).  Indicating that he planned to remain in the area for some considerable time, Munnings sent for his brown mare, The Duchess, and rode out with a number of local hunts including The Western Hounds.  On one occasion he 'enraged the Master, Colonel William Bolitho, by defying the whip and saving the life of a fox which had given the hunt a good run.  Finally the animal leapt into the sea and swam for its life until it was washed up exhausted on to the cliffs.  There Munnings insisted it should be left alone to recover' (ibid. p.105).

Following a hugely successful exhibition in London at the Leicester Galleries in March 1913, Munnings set himself up in the village of Zennor; he and Ned Osborne rode with a caravan of horses to the remote village where they lodged, for a guinea a week, with a Mrs Grigg.  His brushes, easels, canvases and other necessities were transported in a wagonette, by Mr Jory, landlord of the Lamorna Tavern.  During five weeks of fine weather he painted Ned as huntsman, whip and even riding bareback in his shirt-sleeves.  So clement were the conditions that he often left unfinished canvases in a granite cave.    The present work almost certainly dates from this period; Munnings worked extremely quickly, limiting himself to three days work on any one picture.  This rapidity is evident in the present work, where vibrant, bold brushstrokes create scudding clouds running above an untamed, granite-strewn terrain.  The rider, in contrast, is more precisely finished; yet his placing in the composition, riding away from the viewer, is unconventional displaying Munnings idiosyncratic take on a very traditional subject.  These elements combine to create a composition with a sharp focal point surrounded with movement, atmosphere and vitality.