Munnings, Sir Alfred James - Betts of Pockthorpe
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Description
Sir Alfred James Munnings (British, 1878-1959)
BETTS OF POCKTHORPE
Oil on canvas, 18" x 14"
Signed, dated 1896
Exhibited: A Passionate Pursuit: the Milward Collection, Georgetown College, 2012
Literature: Munnings, Sir Alfred J. Autobiography: An Artist's Life; Second Gurst; The Finish. London, England: Museum Press, 1950. p. 70-71.
When Munnings was seventeen and still enrolled part time at the Norwich School of Art he spent many Saturday afternoons painting landscapes in his native Suffolk. With an ambition not uncommon in young men of seventeen, Munnings soon grew tired of painting small landscape studies and was eager to find a model so that he could include a figure into one of them. With the lessons of art school still fresh in his memory, Munnings took inspiration from Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875), the French painter of the Barbizon school. Millet is recognized for his paintings of peasants in rural France, and was often criticized for showing paintings of contemporary social conditions at the Paris Salon. His painting The Sower (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), along with The Angelus (Musee d'Orsay, Paris) and The Gleaners (Musee d'Orsay, Paris), is part of an iconic trio of paintings that depict French peasants as they were as opposed to romanticizing them. As this trio had cemented Millet's place in the Western art historical cannon, Munnings was eager to follow suit.
He found such a model in "Jumbo" Betts - a local man who polished lithograph stones for artists in the area. In his autobiography, Munnings recollects:
"Jumbo" Betts - a real kind, humorous soul, who could put a wonderful polish on a stone, large or small. I can see him now, laying the steel straightedge along the surface of a large sixty by forty. Jumbo became a friend of mine. He lived in a low haunt of the city, called Pockthorpe, not far from the Cavalry Barracks. Mousehold Heath was only just above this parish, and "Jumbo" had a portion on the allotments up there."
"This time it must have been Millet's pictures that gave me an idea; but, whatever the cause, I arranged with "Jumbo" to go round to his house with my things on a Saturday afternoon in November, and we both toiled up to his allotment, where he posed for me digging all the afternoon and again on the Sunday following."
"Another memory: the digging figure, purple cabbages, yellowing leaves of fruit-bushes, the rising ground beyond - almost my first serious attempt at out-of-door figure-painting. "Jumbo" still stands there in that picture in somebody's house - he stands there in my mind, too, to-day. I believe the canvas was only eighteen by fourteen, with "Winsor and Newton" stamped on the back, and I enjoyed the painting of this in the still November afternoon with all the thrills of eager youth and inexperience."
(Munnings, An Artist's Life, p. 70-71).
While this painting may seem atypical to those familiar with Munnings' oeuvre, it is a strong piece that plays an important role in tracking the evolution and development of his style. For while he may have painted commissioned portraits for the elite (at the urging of his second wife), he also painted gypsies, circus performers, and, in this case, a friend digging in his allotment.
BETTS OF POCKTHORPE
Oil on canvas, 18" x 14"
Signed, dated 1896
Exhibited: A Passionate Pursuit: the Milward Collection, Georgetown College, 2012
Literature: Munnings, Sir Alfred J. Autobiography: An Artist's Life; Second Gurst; The Finish. London, England: Museum Press, 1950. p. 70-71.
When Munnings was seventeen and still enrolled part time at the Norwich School of Art he spent many Saturday afternoons painting landscapes in his native Suffolk. With an ambition not uncommon in young men of seventeen, Munnings soon grew tired of painting small landscape studies and was eager to find a model so that he could include a figure into one of them. With the lessons of art school still fresh in his memory, Munnings took inspiration from Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875), the French painter of the Barbizon school. Millet is recognized for his paintings of peasants in rural France, and was often criticized for showing paintings of contemporary social conditions at the Paris Salon. His painting The Sower (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), along with The Angelus (Musee d'Orsay, Paris) and The Gleaners (Musee d'Orsay, Paris), is part of an iconic trio of paintings that depict French peasants as they were as opposed to romanticizing them. As this trio had cemented Millet's place in the Western art historical cannon, Munnings was eager to follow suit.
He found such a model in "Jumbo" Betts - a local man who polished lithograph stones for artists in the area. In his autobiography, Munnings recollects:
"Jumbo" Betts - a real kind, humorous soul, who could put a wonderful polish on a stone, large or small. I can see him now, laying the steel straightedge along the surface of a large sixty by forty. Jumbo became a friend of mine. He lived in a low haunt of the city, called Pockthorpe, not far from the Cavalry Barracks. Mousehold Heath was only just above this parish, and "Jumbo" had a portion on the allotments up there."
"This time it must have been Millet's pictures that gave me an idea; but, whatever the cause, I arranged with "Jumbo" to go round to his house with my things on a Saturday afternoon in November, and we both toiled up to his allotment, where he posed for me digging all the afternoon and again on the Sunday following."
"Another memory: the digging figure, purple cabbages, yellowing leaves of fruit-bushes, the rising ground beyond - almost my first serious attempt at out-of-door figure-painting. "Jumbo" still stands there in that picture in somebody's house - he stands there in my mind, too, to-day. I believe the canvas was only eighteen by fourteen, with "Winsor and Newton" stamped on the back, and I enjoyed the painting of this in the still November afternoon with all the thrills of eager youth and inexperience."
(Munnings, An Artist's Life, p. 70-71).
While this painting may seem atypical to those familiar with Munnings' oeuvre, it is a strong piece that plays an important role in tracking the evolution and development of his style. For while he may have painted commissioned portraits for the elite (at the urging of his second wife), he also painted gypsies, circus performers, and, in this case, a friend digging in his allotment.
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Munnings, Sir Alfred James - Betts of Pockthorpe
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