Sir Alfred James Munnings, PRA, RWS

(British, 1878-1959)

White pony

Footnotes

Provenance
The Leicester Galleries, London.
S. G. Lubbock Collection, UK (acquired from the above November 1947).
The Leicester Galleries, London.
Private collection, UK (acquired from the above January 1959).
Thence by descent to the present owner.

Exhibited
London, Leicester Galleries, The English Scene: Horses, Racing, Landscapes and Studies by Sir Alfred Munnings, October - November 1947, no. 46.
London, Leicester Galleries, New Year Exhibition, January 1959, no. 64.

The pony in this painting, Moonraker, belonged to an Exmoor farmer named Froude Bawden. Bawden and his wife were good friends of Munnings and they were used as models in a number of compositions. Mrs Bawden was painted in a traditional portrait on her thoroughbred mare Harmony, while Mr Bawden was painted driving sheep, on the same white pony as in the present work. Munnings also painted the pony standing at a gate in the Bawden's yard in a Royal Academy painting February Thaw (painted 1945 and exhibited Diploma Gallery, 1956, no. 297). Munnings in fact illustrates February Thaw and writes of it in the last volume of his memoirs The Finish p. 106.

The present work is painted the following spring also in the Bawden's farm yard near Withypool. Munnings painted numerous pictures of the Bawden's sheep and it is likely that he saw the white pony waiting to go out and he liked the composition. Despite the contrast of the white pony against the dark background, Munnings' complete understanding of reflected light unifies the composition. The colors of the pony's coat echo the greens and peachy-browns of his surroundings making this simple arrangement into an idyllic and bucolic scene.

White Pony was first exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1947. Munnings wrote in his memoirs 'The Exhibition was held in both rooms at the Leicester Galleries. Little did the Galley proprietors or the artist himself dream what the result of it could be. In spite of the show being boycotted by some critics, there was a big daily attendance. Most of the works were sold, the sales reaching just on £21,000.'¹

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

¹ Sir Alfred Munnings, The Finish, Bungay, 1952, p. 177.