Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S.

Leicester Galleries, London 1947;
Bond Street Galleries, London, by 1955;
Sotheby's, New York, 4 June 1975, lot 240;
Ackermann & Sons, London, 1978 where bought by the mother of the present owner

London, Leicester Galleries, The English Scene Horses, Racing, Landscapes and Studies by Sir Alfred Munnings PRA., 1947, possibly no.23, as Study No.1 for large painting “Newmarket Start” Royal Academy, 1947;
Bournemouth, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, An Artist’s Life Retrospective Exhibition of Works by Sir Alfred Munnings KVCO, PPRA, 1955, probably no.889 as The Yellow Jockey: Study for a large picture of a Newmarket Start;
Royal Academy, Retrospective Exhibition of Sir Alfred Munnings KVCO, PPRA, 1956, no.218, as A study, painted c.1940, for the large painting “Moving Up under Starter’s Orders (RA 1954 (230);
London, Ackermann & Sons, 1978, no.42

Alfred Munnings, The Finish, 1952, illustrated opposite p.280

STRUCTURAL CONDITION The artist's board is providing a sound and secure structural support. PAINT SURFACE The paint surface has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows very minimal spots and a thin horizontal line of inpainting in the upper left corner and very small spots on the neck of the horse on the right of the composition. There is a vertical line on the neck of the horse in the centre of the composition which fluoresces unevenly but is clearly the artist's original pigments rather than later retouching. SUMMARY The painting is therefore in very good and stable condition and no further work is required.
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‘Each start was a fresh picture for me, as they have been, meeting after meeting, year after year’ (The Finish,1952, p.207).

In 1898 Alfred Munnings’ painting Stranded (Bristol City Art Gallery), depicting two children in a row-boat marooned among reed-beds, was accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy; the first of his 230 exhibits there over his long and prestigious career. To celebrate this first hurdle in his artistic career, the nineteen-year-old artist was taken to a race-meeting at Bungay in Suffolk.  It was the first time he had seen an organized horse-race and it was a revelation to him. He wrote in his memoirs; ‘...such color and action as I had never dreamed’ (An Artist’s Life, 1950, p.65). His enthusiasm for racing remained with him for the next sixty years and inspired some of his most celebrated and accomplished paintings which capture the energy, tensions and colour of race-day. He was fascinated by all aspects of racing, from the social diversity of the spectators to the preparations of the grooms and stable-boys. However, at the many race meetings that Munnings attended over his career, he was most inspired by the sight of the mounted jockeys in their vivid coloured silks jostling for position at the starting position.

Munnings’ ability to isolate telling moments in the paddock or to compose remarkably complex groupings of owners, trainers, and horses had made Munnings the unquestioned master of the English race track. But it was the most elemental pictorial problems that drove Munnings in his paintings of horses and jockeys gathered on the starting-line that so challenged him in the 1940s. It was the combination of timelessness and the immediate moment that made the Newmarket ‘Starts’ so compelling for Munnings.

When The Yellow Jockey was included in Munnings’ retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1956, it was stated that it was painted c.1940. Between 1940 and 1959 Munnings included a painting of the start of a race in virtually every Royal Academy show. These exhibits varied in the level of their finish; some were sketches for more finished pictures. By the end of the Second World War his ‘Starts’ were the principal focus of his art. In part, Munnings had become resistant to the commissioned work that he felt so constrained his freedom, but more importantly after the war he was living again at his country house in Dedham - close enough to the racecourse at Newmarket (about 40 miles away) to allow him to visit regularly throughout the racing season. One of the oldest racing venues in England, hallowed by Royal sponsorship dating to the seventeenth century, Newmarket's courses were open to the sky and the expansive heathland in a way that newer tracks closer to London were not. In addition to watching three or four races a day, as he often did, Munnings kept a studio right at the track (through the courtesy of the Jockey Club) in an old rubbing barn. Munnings frequently described the different ‘Starts’ that he witnessed in the autobiography on which he was working concurrently, and he ruefully acknowledged the frustrations he faced in getting the specific character of these always-unique moments onto canvas. In an oft-quoted passage, he summarized the experience: ‘I am standing on the course - the most beautiful course in the world: cloudless October sky, a faint wind from the east.... I am looking at the scene, the old, old scene - a centuries old scene. Horses come up the course looking like those of years ago....Bright colors in the sun just the same as of yore.... What a sight for the artist! with the long shadows and the lights on the boots, lights on the horses.... This is the best picture I have ever seen - why can't I paint it?’ (Sir Alfred Munnings, The Finish, 1952, pp.216-17). Photographs of Munnings in his studio from these years often show him with two or three distinctive ‘Starts’ and the supporting studies before him at once.

The Yellow Jockey is one of the most completed studies with the composition almost entirely filled by the horse and jockey seen up-close at eye-level as though the viewer were amongst the action as one of the other jockeys. The picture probably began as a sketch for one of the figures in Moving Up under Starter’s Orders exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1940. Unlike many jockeys in the ‘Silks and Satins’ series (see Peralta-Ramos, The Mastery of Munnings, 2002 p.64-65),  this jockey is not regrouping but is positioned to take off and to hold his seat when his mount leaps into action. There is a wonderful sense of anticipation and energy in the picture, emphasized by the loose paintwork and the vivid colour. The jockey has taken a deep, secure seat, tilted slightly forward with weight in his stirrups, his hands high to move with his horse’s head when the action bursts forward. His expression is focused ahead, waiting for the starter’s flag to drop. Munnings was an accomplished horseman and therefore every movement of both the horse and the rider is accurate. As a portraitist, Munnings has captured the sitter’s emotion and intensity of concentration as well as the horse’s excitement to run, revealed by his lathered mouth and shoulder, flared nostrils, pricked ears, raised head-carriage and wide-eyed expression. This is not simply an image of a man seated on a racehorse.

Although the picture probably began as a sketch for a larger painting, it undoubtedly holds its own as a complete picture. The scene is charged with quivering power and tension as horses enter and leave the confines of the canvas. The lower half of the number 6 horse is obscured from our vision as if we are actually witnessing the event at eye level. This idea of cropping and revealing a slice of life was used by Degas to great effect in his ballet scenes and in this picture it creates intense drama and expectation.

As a colorist, Munnings was inspired by the effects of changing light on the glistening silks and the sheen on the coats of well-groomed horses. He has perfected a harmoniously integrated picture by repeating the same various hues throughout the work; the yellow of the jockey’s silks is echoed in his boots and on other jockeys. It is also used to highlight the horse’s coat. All the figures are thus, convincingly integrated into this picture. Munnings loved horseracing but more importantly it offered him a variety of surfaces on which to record the effects of shifting sunlight.

We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work, which will be included in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the works of Sir Alfred Munnings.