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

The Leicester Galleries, London
Mrs. Dunne (acquired from the above, 1947)
Thence by descent (and sold, Christie's, New York, December 5, 2003, lot 132, illustrated)
Richard Green, London
Acquired from the above

London, The Leicester Galleries, "The English scene" : horses, racing, landscapes, and studies by Sir Alfred James Munnings P.R.A., October-November 1947, no. 66

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting on panel is in perfect condition. The panel is flat and unreinforced on the reverse. The paint layer is clean and varnished. It shows no retouches. The work should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

After the second world war, Munnings turned away from the formal portraits of prized horses that had been the heart of his work and concentrated on racing scenes, particularly those at his favorite racecourse, Newmarket. Munnings had become resistant to the commissioned work that he felt so constrained his freedom, but, more importantly, 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.  In addition to watching three or four races a day, as he often did, the Jockey Club kindly allowed Munnings to convert an old rubbing barn into a track-side studio, as well as the unusual privilege of bicycling on the race course. Doubtless an eccentric spectacle, it afforded him extraordinary mobility to view the field of runners during the sketching and planning phase of a composition. As he describes in his autobiography, “some horses, more restive than others – dancing sideways, capering, rearing, bounding – dashed off in pursuit of those ahead.  For me the visual beauty was over all too soon, as strings of restive horses came down, turned and cantered one after the other up the hill to meet the sun.  What books did I fill with hundreds of drawings and notes!  My mind and brain were saturated in the subject.” (Sir Alfred J. Munnings, The Finish, London, 1952, p. 181).

Later, in his converted barn at the track or back at the more elaborate studio at Castle House, Munnings worked on numerous paintings at once, surrounded by his many sketches of "starts" and studies of individual horses. Munnings included either a finished “start” painting or a less polished “start” sketch in virtually every Royal Academy show in which he exhibited between 1940 and his death in 1959, and the present work was included in the momentous Leicester Galleries exhibition in 1947 (see lot 63 for further discussion). This study would eventually be used for the central horse and jockey in his large canvas Going to the Start (1945, National Museum of Racing, Saratoga, fig. 1), which features a group of horses proceeding towards the starting line, some having broken into a gallop while others are held back. Munnings loved the scenes preceding the start of a race, where horses and jockeys gather in anticipation of the dropping of the starting flag, some more quietly than others. He frequently described the different “starts” that he witnessed, and ruefully acknowledges the frustrations he faced in getting the specific character of these always-unique moments onto canvas in a frequently quoted passage The Finish: "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?" (Munnings, p. 216-7).

 Munnings’ technical expertise and deep knowledge of his subject contribute to the fluidity and strength of this tight composition. As he renders the jockey’s firm grip on the reigns and the weight of his seat in the saddle, the horse’s tense energy gathers underneath its hind-quarters, anticipating the momentum, thrust and exhilaration of the race.