Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S. 1878-1959

Purchased from the Mayfair Art Gallery, April 1944
thence by descent

Royal Academy, 1944, no. 64 as Exercising
Glasgow, Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Art, 1944, no. 295 as Exercising

Sir Alfred Munnings, The Second Burst, 1951, after page 176 (illustrated)

Structure The canvas is in good original condition; unlined. Surface The paint surface is in good, clean condition with rich impasto. There are a couple of very minor abrasions just off the upper border. Ultraviolet Light reveals no sign of retouching or restoration. Frame Held in a period plaster gilt frame in good condition. This work is in superb original condition and comes highly recommended.
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Munnings had adored horses since his childhood and in fact owned thirty-four during his lifetime. Of those he only ever sold four, a fact that he always regretted. Preferring to paint what he pleased rather than commissions, Munnings often used his own horses as models and when they were not standing in the sunlight, he used them as hunters, hacks and brood mares.

In a letter to the mother of the present owner Munnings reveals the name and nature of his subjects,
'...the nearest leading one was by a horse called 'Lord Hilary', a premium sire, out of a large hunter mare I had from  the Pytchley Country from a friend.  He was a big, kind horse & good hunter.  The chestnut behind was by Lord Rosebery's Vertigo by Swinford out of a Red Prince mare belonging to my wife - this mare his mother, is in the picture...the two other were good ones - Migrant - left, behind.  'Cherry Bounce', left front...'

The horse Migrant gives us an indication to the date of the present work as he features in another similar painting, Exercising in the Snow at Castle Paddock:  The Painters Groom Bayfield with 'Migrant' and 'Julia' (private collection), (Fig. 1) which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1927, no. 108.

The present work also held great sentimental value for Lady Munnings as the letter relates,
'My wife was very upset when I took it out of our dining room down here & bore it away to the academy, as all the four horses, except the leading one - mounted - are gone.'

Horses being led through the fields near his homes was a common occurrence, and as early as the 1920s he was touched by the routine scene and moved to paint it (see The Mastery of Munnings, 2000, Snowy Morning,  page 46, illustrated).  After World War II, he continued to paint scenes of horse at exercise but changed the setting from near his homes to Newmarket Heath.

Filled with the spirit of the open air, Munnings revelled in painting winter sunshine and its subtle reflective qualities.  In Exercising, the horses are illuminated; glistening with warm highlights, but the ominous sky beyond adds a touch of drama to an otherwise peaceful scene.  He remembered painting such scenes vividly,
'...when there was snow I would go out of the door to watch them.  If a fine morning, what a picture they were in red-and-black-striped blankets and rugs against the white field -  a string of them casting long, blue shadows, and their feet crunching the frozen snow!  More than once did I run back to the studio with a helper to get out my things for painting, and when the string came along I halted them in the light I wanted and began - first placing them on the canvas, and then going on with a pair, whilst the rest kept moving until their turn came to be painted; myself meanwhile standing on a big board, wearing ski boots made in Austria.  The best I ever wore.  They stand in the cloakroom still; reminders of those days of winter-painting that are gone.  Horses gone.  All gone, like the blue shadows on the snow.'
(Sir Alfred Munnings, The Second Burst, 1951, page 189).

The backdrop of the snow covered fields is juxtaposed by the stark contrast of the crisscrossing hedgerows and brown tones of the foreground horses. Munnings knowledge of impressionist colour theory is used to maintain a harmonious balance of colour in which the purple-brown highlights of the horses’ coats are the same tones as the shadows of the winter foliage. This relativity of colour between all the pictorial elements can only have been achieved while painting directly from Nature.

We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos for her assistance in cataloguing this work.