Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) and others - photo 1

Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) and others

Lot 66
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 1 638
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1108865
Lot 66 | Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) and others
Estimate value
£ 800 – 1 200
Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) and others
Five autograph letters signed by Alfred Munnings (‘Alfred Munnings’) and John Richardson (‘John Richardson’) to Paul Konody, Dame Laura Knight, and an unknown recipient, 1850-[1918]
25 pages, various sizes, one letter from Munnings illustrated throughout with comic marginalia. Provenance: Sotheby's, 25 July 1978, lot 292, and Roy Davids Limited, 25 May 1998.

‘Confound all people who make water colours. Confound all makers of water colour paper. Confound all dam’d colour what pull up when you want to wash over them. Confound all dam’d colours what go black & sad & dull and Confound all things to do with the bally medium whatever’. Munnings writing to Knight complaining about his frustrations over a picture ‘am keeping it until May when I’ll go at it again when there’s no rotten R.A. to think of’ and discussing his work with watercolour, ‘Perhaps one little bright thing done in a morning to save myself from utter damnation was as good as any. I slogged too on an artificial, little, fictional thing of a Postillion & grey horses, and carriage with Victorian ladies suggested – to confound many things as Jorrocks did I should go on in this way’. The present letter illustrated extensively with depictions of Munnings throwing away his watercolour box in disgust and kicking a canvas, alongside a full page depicting scenes from the hunt. The three letters to Konody describing his time capturing scenes from the front, ‘I was quickly made a captain and given a tin hat’, continuing ‘I love France...I stand up on the high chalk cliffs & look over that peaceful valley’. The letter from Richardson confirming a meeting the following day and a note confirming that Copley Fielding will be presenting pictures ready to enter an exhibition.

Munnings was commissioned by Konody to go with a group of artists to France to illustrate scenes of Canada’s war effort. He was attached to the Canadian Cavalry Brigade under the command of General Seely, later Lord Mottistone and sent to the Brigade’s headquarters in Northern France, on the front line near the Omignon River. Although Munnings was not intended to join the front line, he remained here to paint the horses in action until the German offensive of March-April 1918. The paintings of the Canadian Army by the commissioned artists were exhibited at Burlington House in January 1919, and Munnings contributed forty-five of the three hundred and fifty paintings shown.
Auction house category:Letters, documents and manuscripts
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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United Kingdom
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