A GREAT-ARTIST

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 20 October 1928, Page 17

A GREAT-ARTIST

HOME TOWN RECOGNITION (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 24th August. The City, of Norwich ris doing honour to Mr. A. J. Munnings, K.A., who has been associated with the city since childhood. The Lord Mayor and Corporation, desirous that civic recognition should be given to his brilliant work, have organised a loan exhibition of his pictures in tho Castle Museum. The collection comprises typical examples of the pictures painted by him in his early days at Norwich and of those produced after ho came in contact with the art of other schools. Owners .of his work, who have readily contributed to the exhibition, include Viscount Lascelles, the Duke of Buthind, the Duke of Marlborough,. the Earl of.Birkenhead, and Sir. Abo Bailey. Mr. Munnings, whose animal pictures are known the world, over, is a Suffolk man, and was born at Meridham in 1878. Immediately on leaving school he was apprenticed to a firm of lithographers fat Norwich, and in his spare time' he studied at the local school of art. After six years of serious endeavour he returned to Mcndham, where for a similar period he painted horses, village characters, hunting subjects, and landscapes, then firmed up his technical skill at Julian V atelier in Paris. Ultimately he reached: London, but before coming to the Metropolis he began'to send pictures to the Royal Academy and tho Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. His themes illustrated country life, fishing, wood cutting, horse fairs, and- vagabonds. About his twentieth year ■an accident happened which might have ended his career as A, painter. AVhile chasing a hare one day a twig of a-thorn fence struck him on the pupil' of tho right eye, blinding it permanently. .Fortunately, this defect in no way interfered with the brilliance of his after work. RAPID DEVELOPMENT. Mr. Manning's art developed rapidly, and the war pictures made by him for I lie Canadian Government establish-, ed his fame. Many commissions followed; and splendid canvases were pro- ■ iliiecd until 1919, when he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, full honours falling to him. fittingly oil Derby Day, l!)2b'. In'Dccembcr last year a handsome ■'volume entitled "Pictures of Horses- and English Life" was published, and the excellent reproductions gave a lino idea of his range of subjects and the remarkable rapidity and assurance of .both his physical vision and craftsmanship. . No fewer than 277 examples of his work have been collected. There is his earliest work in the Norwich School of Art, tho advertisement.'ho paintedas a boy of 20 to pay for his art education, and tho poster which won him a gold medal in a London competition. There is the first oil painting he sold, "The Farmyard," painted in 189 G. Many of the pictures are'marked "Exhibited at the ■ Koyal.I'Academy'*'; but, like most artists, Mr. Munniiigs has had his disappointments, and "A Suffolk Fair" (1904) is labelled "Sent to the Koyal Academy 1905 and not hung."