Munnings: A Life of his Own

There is one blatant flaw to the exhibition of works by Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) that has just opened at the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket—and that is its lamentable brevity, ending as soon as June 12. Barely less obvious, however, is the aptness of its place in the calendar, incorporating as it does a long holiday weekend in celebration not just of a royal jubilee, but of national culture and (across the Derby and a Lord's Test) sporting tradition.

In the words of John Masefield, engraved on the epitaph for Munnings in St. Paul's Cathedral: “Oh friend, how very lovely are the things/The English things, you helped us to perceive.” It is a measure of the span of the monarch's reign that one of the final commissions executed by Munnings, actually not part of this quite marvellous exhibition, was of the young Queen with her finest racehorse, Aureole, before the 1954 Coronation Cup at Epsom—almost a year to the day after her own coronation. And to many admirers, Munnings will forever preserve the quintessence of an England never to be retrieved: pastoral, sporting and very beautiful.

Even in his own day, Munnings was a bulwark of tradition, with a notorious distaste for the artistic experimentation of contemporaries. His own modernity was confined to designation as a “British Impressionist”, and instead he extends a native tradition as our greatest equestrian painter since Stubbs.

So while this may be a busy time of year for Newmarket's professional community, its members must beg, borrow or steal whatever time they can to seize this quietly historic opportunity right on their doorstep. Some of the exhibits in 'A Life of His Own', after all, have never previously been disclosed to public view.

What a living piece of history, for instance, is the depiction of Humorist and Steve Donoghue being led onto the track for the 1921 Derby, loaned from a private collection. In his autobiography Munnings recalled making a study of the horse at Charles Morton's yard, on a sunny Sunday soon after his success, a scheduled run at Royal Ascot having been abandoned after he burst blood vessels in a gallop. Munnings and Morton then shared a couple of bottles of the celebratory champagne sent to Letcombe Bassett by Humorist's owner, Jack Joel, and after lunch the artist succumbed to the shade of a yew on the lawn. The next thing he knew, he was being woken by Morton's “pretty little wife—far younger than he—looking like Ophelia in Hamlet, wringing her hands” and crying out that Humorist was dead.

Then Morton himself appeared, his phlegm undiminished either by the champagne or the death of a Derby winner. He told Munnings to follow him into the yard for “a sight you won't see again as long as you live.” He threw open the door to Humorist's stall, and there he lay in the straw, one eye still open. There was blood everywhere. “Well,” said his trainer quietly. “There lies fifty thousand pounds' worth!”

Yet we today retain the priceless privilege of seeing the horse preserved in his vital glory by one of the great eyes ever to have united artist and horseman. Munnings invited Donoghue to his Chelsea studio to complete his prepared study of Humorist, seating him on a wooden prop in the famous black silks and scarlet cap; and he then made a social document of the background, with newspapers wind-strewn across the turf and a crowd hemmed between rails and tents and bookmakers' signs.

This exhibition, expertly curated by Katherine Field for the Palace House-based British Sporting Art Trust, encompasses some 40 works—not just oils, but also watercolours, drawings and sculpture—spanning 60 years of the artist's career, from recording the East Anglian country life of his youth to presidency of the Royal Academy. They incorporate samples of every stage in between: the Canadian Cavalry at war, the hunting field, landscapes, pageantry.

But Turf aficionados will especially prize the social documentation incidental to all this timeless art—as, for instance, the 1938 twin portrait of breed-shaping stallions Hyperion and Fairway for the 17th Earl of Derby, their grooms completing the serenity and veracity of the scene much after the fashion of Stubbs; or the casually attired, hatless riders following their dapper guv'nor onto the gallops against a summer sky of high cloud.

Munnings did much of this work in a studio converted from the last rubbing house on the Heath, a remote outpost near the end of the Devil's Dyke, working “in perfect silence but for the songs of skylarks.” Here he consented to a final racehorse portrait in 1951, having renounced such commissions after learning from Sun Chariot some years previously, “for the last time, the folly of attempting to paint racehorses.” What a benediction that he took so long to discover that folly, and not just for the town that welcomes him back to its midst for the next few days.

The post Munnings: A Life of his Own appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Munnings For Sale

No, not that Munnings. His namesake. The OG. Sir Alfred James Munnings.

Six of the painter's works from the estate of the late Betty Moran with an estimated value of between $2.4 to over $3.8 million will be auctioned off at Christie's auction house in New York City, Wednesday, Oct. 13, at 11 a.m.

Munnings, the most renowned English sporting artist of the 20th Century, was known for his exceptional equine art, which has brought prices of over $7 million at auction. The six pieces are lots 32-27 in the European Art sale.

They are:

Shrimp Leading Ponies Across the Ringland Hills, Norfolk, estimated to sell for between $300,000-$500,000

A Park Meeting, The Eclipse Stakes, Sandown Park ($200,000-$300,000)

Study of a Jockey in the Duke of Westminster's Colors ($15,000-$20,000)

After the Race, Cheltenham ($700,000-$1,000,000)

Who's The Lady, and Two Studies ($800,000-$1.2 million)

The Seventh Earl of Bathurst, W.F.H. of the V.H.W., with Will Boore, Huntsman ($400,000-$600,000)

View the entire catalogue of European art here, or download the Moran catalogue here.

“To have a collection of this quality and diversity is rare,” said Deborah Coy, the Senior Vice President and Head of the Department of European Art at Christie's. “It's unique in that. A lot of people will collect racing, or they'll collect hunting, or equestrian portraits. This encompasses all of that.”

Shrimp Leading Ponies Across the Ringland Hills, Norfolk, is expected to fetch up to $500,000

Elizabeth 'Betty' Ranney Moran, who raced the likes of 1985 GI Belmont S. winner Creme Fraiche and bred champion Unique Bella and Hard Spun, passed away at her home in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Jan. 23, 2020, at the age of 89.

Moran grew up on Brushwood Farm, then a dairy farm, in Willistown Township, Pennsylvania, and was said to love farm life and animals of any kind. She won her first stakes race in 1978, and achieved her biggest success seven years later when Creme Fraiche took his Classic. Almost 20 years later, she would win the GI Arlington Million with Kicken Kris.

“She was probably the most generous person I've ever met, not to just write a check, but to ring a bell for the Salvation Army in downtown Philly,” said Reiley McDonald, her equine advisor for over 30 years, at the time of her death. “She was a tough, enthusiastic, hard-driving woman and we will all miss her very much.”

The collection runs from a Norfolk landscape featuring a collection of the artist's ponies (Shrimp Leading Ponies), to a paddock scene at Sandown (A Park Meeting), to a jockey study, to a post-steeplechase scene (After the Race), to what is expected to be the star of the collection, Who's the Lady. The latter depicts Queen Elizabeth II's aunt, Princess Mary, at a hunt. Originally a smaller canvas, it is inscribed by Munnings, “This was smaller canvas with HRH Princess Mary on grey that I put aside or a larger one s shown in this Exhibition with Lord Harewood and the Bramham Moor Hounds. In 1946, I had the canvas relined and enlarged, making the figure of HRH into the central figure (Lucy Glitters) and then surrounding her with members of the Nonsuch Hunt as now seen lady.”
Munnings died in 1959, and had kept this painting himself until at least 1956.

“These pictures really do speak for themselves,” said Coy. “We sent a selection to London to be viewed, and one out to Southampton, and they're very well received, everywhere. Munnings has an appeal in both sides of the pond, which is a very important thing about this art. Many racing art collectors are just English buyers, but not so with Munnings. He has a very strong American following, as well.”

Munnings's work, of course, has often found a home with racing people like Moran. But it's the scope of his equine subjects that makes him so interesting, and lasting.

Said Coy, “I think he is one of the more interesting of the equestrian artists, because he does do a wide range of equestrian subjects. They're just beautiful. And his racing scenes are spectacular. The breadth of his subject matter is extraordinary.”

It seems a bit ironic that just this week, two of racing's most prominent art collectors, Peter Brant and John Magnier, bought into a Munnings of their own with their purchase of a piece of Jack Christopher, who heads next to the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile as one of the top choices.

But then, racing and art have always had a certain synchronicity, and it wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone if some–if not all–of these works ended up in the hands of someone every bit as revered in racing as Betty Moran.

The post Munnings For Sale appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

This Year’s Sporting Art Auction Offers Racing Legends, Beautiful Landscapes, And A Bit Of Humor

In a year when nothing is quite normal, it's nice to have a few things you can count on. For the Keeneland auction pavilion, the switch from horses to art is as reliable as the changing of the seasons. For the eighth year, broodmares and weanlings made their annual November parade through the auction ring while paintings and sculpture decorated the pavilion's halls, awaiting their turn to change hands in the Sporting Art Auction.

While in previous years, the Sporting Art Auction sees paintings and sculpture auctioned from the iconic Keeneland ring, this year's sale will be conducted virtually. Those who were at Keeneland for the November Sale may also have noticed fewer works of art lighting their passage between the café and the back walking ring, as organizer Cross Gate Gallery sought to display this year's catalogue in smaller groups to discourage crowding from viewers.

Much like the sale that precedes it, the catalogue for the Sporting Art Auction varies a bit year by year.

“We want everyone to be able to find something that we like, so we do have 19th Century British, and we extend all the way up,” said Bill Evans Meng, gallery director for Cross Gate Gallery in Lexington, Ky. “There are a lot of contemporary painters. I'm 37 and everyone my age is buying the new things. [The catalog] is maybe is a little more contemporary this year but sometimes you have to go with what you can find.”

Meng said he aims to have a healthy mix of time periods, styles, and subjects each year. While most feature horses either in racing or foxhunting contexts, there are often a few pastoral scenes as well as a few of hunting dogs, farm creatures, or fowl.

A few works were commissioned to depict specific horses. A trio of portraits from well-known equine painter Richard Stone Reeves depict Law Society, Coup De Feu and Mr. Right, while a signed collection of 12 prints from Franklin B. Voss (no relation to the author) is a fond look back at the top runners of the 1920s and 1930s, including Man o' War, Gallant Fox, Seabiscuit, and Discovery.

For Meng, works designed to immortalize a particular subject sometimes come along with the most interesting stories.

“The ones that are specific, they have a story and people like that,” said Meng. “I feel like all three of the Reeves this year, they had real connections to the connections. The one of the Coup de Feu was a father and son story – the father owned it and got his son started racing. Law Society was a big horse for Vincent O'Brien and of course shows his incredible training facility. The third Reeves, Mr. Right, came from the trainer and I got to talk to him a lot and he really liked the horse. When you do these specific ones, there's always a story and I think people connect to that.

“Of course a lot of our clients are horsemen and they're into bloodlines. They might know this was their horse's great-great-grandsire and that means something to them.”

In a somewhat unusual twist, this year's auction also features a human portrait from German/American artist Nicola Marschall of Daniel Swigert. Swigert and his Elmendorf Farm are two of the oldest names in the Kentucky Thoroughbred business, tracing back from the 1870s.

(We wrote about Elmendorf and Swigert in our Kentucky Farm Time Capsule series. Read that profile piece here.)

“When he was young he tried to build up what became Buffalo Trace Distillery and then he went on to become a great horsemen,” he said. “I knew about him, but I didn't know enough about him to appreciate it when I saw the painting the first time [10 or 12 years ago.]”

Lot 120, Early Morning Exercise, Green Lane as painted by Peter Howell

Other pieces are looser or more interpretative, allowing an owner or fan to see their own favorite horse in the lights and shadows. Painter Peter Howell's depictions of morning training at Keeneland and Newmarket are particularly good examples of this.

Then there are pieces likely to garner attention on name recognition alone. The catalog contains a number of sketches from the well-known Sir Alfred Munnings, as well as brightly-colored scenes from popular Henry Lawrence Faulkner and a landscape from Andrew Wyeth.

(Read more about Sir Alfred Munnings in this 2017 feature.)

There are also pieces with a sense of humor. Andrew Pater's 'The Empty Bowl' features a hound next to his empty dish wearing the dry, humorless expression all pet owners have experienced when they've dared to come home late. 'Antagonizing the Barn Cat' from George Armfield shows a faceoff between an irritated tabby and a trio of terriers poised to hop and play. Then there's Philip Eustace Stretton's 'Study of A Ginger Cat' displaying an enormous orange feline upon a regal crimson cushion.

“I've chuckled myself walking by it,” said Meng. “We don't get a lot of cat paintings, but we do have some clients that sort of got on a cat kick, so there you go. He's sort of looking majestic.

“They kind of would paint these animal genre scenes like that, where you'd see them acting out. Animals are going to be animals. I think they're something people can relate to, something lighthearted. Those do well, because people like to laugh.”

Lot 73, Study Of A Ginger Cat, 1908 by Philip Eustace Stretton

Art collectors, like breeders with an impressive base of broodmares, do not necessarily have a time clock on their investments. Some pieces may come to auction when an owner disperses their collection or as part of an estate sale. Other owners may look at the market and their particular piece's merits and try to read the tea leaves, deciding if this is the time to benefit from an increase in value. Meng tells people that their decision should ultimately come down to their relationship with a piece – and for some, that means they may decide to rebuff his overtures to selling.

“That's why we generally have 180 lots instead of 5,000 like at the Keeneland sale,” said Meng. “I tell people, you're the one who has to love it. You're the one who has to look at it every day. And if you love it, you shouldn't let it go.”

See this year's Sporting Art Auction catalog online here.

The post This Year’s Sporting Art Auction Offers Racing Legends, Beautiful Landscapes, And A Bit Of Humor appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights