Munnings painted September Afternoon at the height of his career. In contrast to the restrictive demands of commissioned works, for which he was in great demand, this was a work painted for his own pleasure on the river Stour near his home in Dedham, Essex.

He returned to the impressionistic style of earlier paintings and his pre-occupation with capturing the ever-changing effects of light on motifs.

An early rare example of pen and ink illustration by Munnings which featured in a book of short stories titled Told at Twilight by Nicholas Everitt, published in 1904.

The river Waveney, on the border of Suffolk and Norfolk, inspired Munnings to paint some of his most enduring and iconic early works. The location for Path to the Orchard was the tow path of his childhood home at Mendham Mill situated on the Waveney.

The pony in the painting, ‘Augereau’, was one of Munnings favourite models and appears in many early works.

Two locations on the river Waveney were used as the backdrop for this painting.

“The grey-weather subject I prepared for was ‘The Ford’ - grey water and dark reflections broken by lines of the current.”

“Pattering sound of poplars and the rustling reeds fringing dark, still stretches of river with steely, shimmering, wind- touched surface…”

In 1911 Munnings moved to Lamorna in Cornwall. The stream which flows through Lamorna Valley is likely to have been where he painted this bucolic scene. He recalled:

“…the high sunlight piercing foliage, flashing on a leaf and stalk – throwing pools of light on transparent, rippling, sandy shallows.”

In 1918, as an official war artist, Munnings painted the Canadian Cavalry Brigade in Northern France. He frequently used the river as an anchor for his paintings of soldiers and horses, which resulted from the many studies he made.

A sun-filled and joyous conversation piece painted on the cusp of the ‘Roaring Twenties’. Taggs Island is nestled in the river Thames a short distance from Hampton Court Palace.

Munnings growing success as a painter enabled him to purchase Castle House in Dedham, Essex in 1919. Situated close to the river Stour he called his home “The house of my dreams” and lived there until his death in 1959. This painting of his wife Violet and a friend is one of his early scenes of the Stour, many more were to follow over the next 40 years.

A sense of modernity and experimentation is created by Munnings exceptionally loose handling of paint to depict the flooded river and reflections of trees.

“Always I have loved a river, … peace can still be sought and found by the banks of the Stour.”

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Munnings home in Dedham was requisitioned by the army. He and his wife Violet moved to their home on Exmoor where he began a series of works of Brightworthy Ford on the river Barle.

“This is only something of what the eye sees whilst the never-ceasing music of the running river goes on and on - a background of sound to the bird songs.”

Fir-cones, teasels, chewed ends of pieces of wood and paint rags tied on sticks were the tools with which Munnings painted this scene at Badgworthy Water on Exmoor having forgotten his brushes that morning!