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GBP 40,000 - GBP 60,000

Closed: 15 Jul 2022

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SIR ALFRED JAMES MUNNINGS, P.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1878-1959)

Going to the start

Closed: 15 Jul 2022

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SIR ALFRED JAMES MUNNINGS, P.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1878-1959)
Going to the start
signed and dated ' A.J. MUNNINGS/ 1907' (lower right)
watercolour on paper
32¹⁄₂ x 27³⁄₄ in. (82 x 70.5 cm.)

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 11 May 1988, lot 17.
Private collection.

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
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Lot Essay

From the age of fourteen to twenty Munnings was apprenticed to Page Brothers, a Norwich firm of lithographers and poster designers, studying at the Norwich School of Art in the evening. Whilst working there he came to the attention of John Shaw Tomkins, a director of the chocolate manufacturers Cayley and Son, who became one of his earliest patrons. Tomkins commissioned advertising posters and designs for chocolate boxes, as well as buying a number of his earliest exhibits at the Norwich Art Circle. As his apprenticeship came to an end in 1898 Munnings had his first paintings accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy. This encouraged him to turn down the offer of a permanent position at Page Brothers to pursue his career as a painter.

However, he continued to supplement his income producing poster designs whilst establishing himself as a painter. is one of Munnings’s earliest depictions of a subject that became a favourite of the artist – the frenzied energy and movement of jockeys and horses jostling for position at the start of a race. The work is the original design for a poster advertising Hethersett races, an example of which was sold in these Rooms on 12 December 2009, lot 12 (£3,250).

We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos, the Curatorial staff at The Munnings Museum and Tristram Lewis for their assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.