Alfred James Munnings (British painter) 1878 - 1959
A Gypsy Encampment, 1914
watercolour on paper
20 x 28 3/8 in. (51 x 72.1 cm.)
signed A.J. Munnings and dated 1914 (lower left)
Catalogue Note
Although Munnings' watercolors are relatively rare, the artist worked frequently in the medium from his art student days and until the early 1900s. A box of watercolors provided Munnings portability and spontaneity; he was able to store the quick-drying pigments and light paper in his caravan as he travelled through the English countryside painting en plein air. The present work was likely completed in the Hampshire hill country where, each September after 1913, the artist attended the hop harvest to paint the encamped gypsies who provided skilled labor. Munnings appreciated the gypsies' openness and their affection for animals, and he lovingly depicted their colorful wagons, the women’s elaborate costumes, and the troupe of accompanying children. As with the present work, Munnings typically captured his impressions of gypsy life in carefully composed, artfully balanced arrangements of color and form. The fluidity and saturations of watercolor enabled particularly expressive compositions; vibrant greens and watery, pale blues are repeated between gypsy wagon and camp members. Many of the gypsies enjoyed serving as models striking nonchalant yet confident poses like the present work’s woman with blue-black hair and red beads, standing contrapposto, arm draped over the curved roof of her tent. What sets this Gypsy Encampment apart from similar compositions by the artist is Munnings' bold use of negative space—the wide open sky interrupted only by the tall, brushy trees and the smudged pigments capturing smoldering campfire.
While many of Munnings’ watercolors were sold via his annual exhibitions at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, the present work was a gift to his friend Richard “Dick” Bullard—whom he remembered as “a dealer in horses, and a character” (Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, London, 1954 p. 181). The two men first met in Norwich when the artist bought a “dark-brown six-year-old mare” from Bullard’s Old Catton stables. While the specific date of this transaction is unclear, a series of Munnings’ paintings depicting horses Bullard owned or sold to the artist from at least 1906 help date the beginnings of their long friendship. In 1912, Munnings painted Bullard on his horse, Pierre Juan. While Munnings remembers Dick being married to his wife Bessy upon their first meeting, Bullard family memory suggests the present work may have been given as a wedding gift to the couple in 1928, about four years after Bullard was named Master of the Dunston Harriers. No matter the sequence of events, the masterful watercolor has been hidden from public view for decades, and its recent re-emergence evocatively evidences Munnings’ belief that when “under the spell of water-colour painting it held me” (Munnings, p. 172).
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