Biography
Alfred Munnings was born on 8 October 1878 at Mendham Mill, Mendham, Suffolk, across the River Waveney from Harleston in Norfolk to Christian parents. His father was the miller and Alfred grew up surrounded by the activity of a busy working mill with horses and horse-drawn carts arriving daily. After leaving Framlingham College at the age of fourteenhe was apprenticed to a Norwich printer, designing and drawing advertising posters for the next six years, attending the Norwich School of Art in his spare time. When his apprenticeship ended, he became a full-time painter. The loss of sight in his right eye in an accident in 1898 did not deflect his determination to paint, and in 1899 two of his pictures were shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.He painted rural scenes, frequently of subjects such as Gypsiesand horses. He was associated with the Newlyn School of painters, and while there met Florence Carter-Wood (1888–1914), a young horsewoman and painter. They married on 19 January 1912 but she tried to kill herself on their honeymoon and did so in 1914. Munnings bought Castle House, Dedham, in 1919, describing it as 'the house of my dreams'.He used the house and adjoining studio extensively throughout the rest of his career, and it was opened as the Munnings Art Museum in the early 1960s, after Munnings's death. Munnings remarried in 1920; his second wife was another horsewoman, Violet McBride (née Haines). There were no children from either marriage. Although his second wife encouraged him to accept commissions from society figures, Munnings became best known for his equine painting: he often depicted horses participating in hunting and racing.War artists
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Alfred_Munnings_-_Charge_of_Flowerdew%27s_Squadron.jpg/220px-Alfred_Munnings_-_Charge_of_Flowerdew%27s_Squadron.jpg)
Charge of Flowerdew's Squadron(1918), Canadian War Museum
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Alfred_Munnings_-_Felling_a_Tree_in_the_Vosges.jpg/220px-Alfred_Munnings_-_Felling_a_Tree_in_the_Vosges.jpg)
Felling a Tree in the Vosges (1918), Canadian War Museum
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Alfred_Munnings-STUDY_OF_A_SWISS_BULL_%28CWM_19710261-0467%29.jpeg/220px-Alfred_Munnings-STUDY_OF_A_SWISS_BULL_%28CWM_19710261-0467%29.jpeg)
Study of a Swiss Bull (before 1919), Canadian War Museum
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Alfred_Munnings-Le_Comte_d%27Etchegoyen_%28CWM_19710261-0454%29.jpg/220px-Alfred_Munnings-Le_Comte_d%27Etchegoyen_%28CWM_19710261-0454%29.jpg)
Le Comte d'Etchegoyen features Olivier d'Etchegoyen, the headquarters staff interpreter for the Canadian Cavalry Brigade (before 1919), Canadian War Museum
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Alfred_Munnings-SHELTERS_IN_SMALLFOOT_WOOD_%28CWM_19710261-0449%29.jpeg/220px-Alfred_Munnings-SHELTERS_IN_SMALLFOOT_WOOD_%28CWM_19710261-0449%29.jpeg)
Shelters in Smallfoot Wood (before 1919), Canadian War Museum
Later career
Munnings was elected president of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1944. He was made a Knight Bachelor in July of the same year,and was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1947 New Year Honours.His presidency is best known for the valedictory speech he gave in 1949, in which he attacked modernism. The broadcast was heard by millions of listeners to BBC radio. An evidently inebriated Munnings claimed that the work of Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso had corrupted art. He recalled that Winston Churchill had once said to him, "Alfred, if you met Picasso coming down the street would you join with me in kicking his ... something something?" to which Munnings said he replied, "Yes Sir, I would". In 1950, Munnings, got hold of some of Stanley Spencer's Scrapbook Drawings and initiated a police prosecution against him for obscenity. Munnings died at Castle House, Dedham, Essex, on 17 July 1959. His ashes were interred at St Paul's Cathedral, with an epitaph by John Masefield ('O friend, how very lovely are the things, The English things, you helped us to perceive'). After his death, his widow turned their house in Dedham into a museum of his work. The village pub in Mendham is named after him, as is a street there. Munnings was portrayed by Dominic Cooper in the film Summer in February, which was released in Britain in 2013.The film is adapted from a novel by Jonathan Smith.At auction
His sporting art works have enjoyed popularity in the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere. As of 2007, the highest price paid for a Munnings painting was $7,848,000 for The Red Prince Mare, far above his previous auction record of $4,292,500 set at Christie's in December 1999. It was one of four works by Munnings in the auction. The Red Prince Mare is a 40 by 60 inches (100 by 150 cm) oil on canvas that was executed in 1921 and had an estimate of $4,000,000 to $6,000,000.Writings
Munnings wrote an autobiography in three volumes:- An Artist's Life, London: Museum Press, 1950
- The Second Burst, London: Museum Press, 1951
- The Finish, London: Museum Pres