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Lot Essay
Munnings, a countryman at heart, had a particular love of the dramatic and distinctive landscapes around Exmoor in Devon and Withypool in particular, where he and his wife had a house. The works that Munnings produced there have an especially intimate and personal feel since typically they were unsolicited and painted purely for pleasure. In 1940 Castle House, in Dedham, their principal residence, was requisitioned by the army and they decamped to Exmoor on a more permanent basis while making regular trips to London where Munnings fulfilled his responsibilities as President of the Royal Academy.
The Exmoor Shepherd is a study for a picture of the same title that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1947, no. 8 (sold Christie’s, New York, 30 May 2002, lot 105, $724,500). Munnings describes in his autobiography how it came to be painted, using a local sheep farmer and friend, Froude Bawden as the model:
'Being known as a painter of horses, pictures of sheep were not saleable. For all that, I had a long spell of sheep studies in Bawden's yard. - "I know every one of 'em in the picture, " he would say. The painting of him and his white pony and sheep, with the stone wall in the background, led to one which was hung in the Academy, called "An Exmoor Shepherd", and which in spite of the sheep in it, was sold for a good figure to an American.
It may interest readers to know how pictures sometimes accidentally happen. For a week, a big landscape - painted at Oare - had been sitting on a side-table against the end wall of our sitting-room. It was of a dark hillside with gorse in the foreground. The smaller picture of Bawden and the sheep was finished [most probably the present lot]. One evening, bringing it back from the farm, I placed it on the table in front of the large Oare landscape, and stepped back to see how it looked. Then I saw a new picture! A shepherd on a white pony, driving his sheep along a track by a stone wall, the dark hill above, making a fresh background, the gorse showing at either side in the foreground. I was all for beginning the new idea at once... I opened the cupboard and toasted my accidental conception in a whisky-and-soda, and soon I saw a magnificent picture growing.
This may sound like a fairy story. It was pouring with rain the next day - no new thing in Withypool. A good-sized canvas was got out, the picture begun.' (A.J. Munnings, The Finish, Bungay, 1952, p. 105).
We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry. This work will be included in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the works of Sir Alfred Munnings.
The Exmoor Shepherd is a study for a picture of the same title that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1947, no. 8 (sold Christie’s, New York, 30 May 2002, lot 105, $724,500). Munnings describes in his autobiography how it came to be painted, using a local sheep farmer and friend, Froude Bawden as the model:
'Being known as a painter of horses, pictures of sheep were not saleable. For all that, I had a long spell of sheep studies in Bawden's yard. - "I know every one of 'em in the picture, " he would say. The painting of him and his white pony and sheep, with the stone wall in the background, led to one which was hung in the Academy, called "An Exmoor Shepherd", and which in spite of the sheep in it, was sold for a good figure to an American.
It may interest readers to know how pictures sometimes accidentally happen. For a week, a big landscape - painted at Oare - had been sitting on a side-table against the end wall of our sitting-room. It was of a dark hillside with gorse in the foreground. The smaller picture of Bawden and the sheep was finished [most probably the present lot]. One evening, bringing it back from the farm, I placed it on the table in front of the large Oare landscape, and stepped back to see how it looked. Then I saw a new picture! A shepherd on a white pony, driving his sheep along a track by a stone wall, the dark hill above, making a fresh background, the gorse showing at either side in the foreground. I was all for beginning the new idea at once... I opened the cupboard and toasted my accidental conception in a whisky-and-soda, and soon I saw a magnificent picture growing.
This may sound like a fairy story. It was pouring with rain the next day - no new thing in Withypool. A good-sized canvas was got out, the picture begun.' (A.J. Munnings, The Finish, Bungay, 1952, p. 105).
We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry. This work will be included in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the works of Sir Alfred Munnings.