The Ford is a body of at least twelve related pictures, two of which are in the museum’s collection. The pictures were painted over several sites including Hoxne and Mendham on the river Waveney, in Suffolk.

When painting figures outdoors Munnings would try to place himself in an obscure spot where he could concentrate on the subject undisturbed.

Dull days and evenings were his favoured times for working on this painting. He wrote of cold hands and feet as he painted the canvases outdoors in the ever-growing chilled weather.

In 1908 Munnings went on a painting sojourn to the Ringland Hills, close to Norwich. For weeks Munnings painted ‘plein air’ honing his observational skills.

Munnings would work his canvases up on a French easel, first invented for the Impressionist painters working outdoors, and he had been known to hang half a bucket of water off an easel if it needed steadying against the wind. “Too strong a breeze irritates. It moves the canvas like an unseen, disturbing sprite.”

He also developed a habit of keeping two canvases available to use at a time. If the day began sunny but changed to cloudy, he would simply swop canvases, rather than try to re-work the existing canvas to the changed weather conditions.

From around 1906 Munnings began visiting Cornwall to paint for short periods of time. In 1911 he settled in Lamorna Cove south of Newlyn. The picture is part of a series of impressionistic works on the theme of blossoms. The blossoms were painted at different times of day in order to explore and capture the changing effects of light which fell upon them.

This work was carried out on a canvas primed with china clay. Munnings credited fellow artist Laura Knight, with whom he became lifelong friends, with introducing him to this method of working. China clay, a local resource in Cornwall, was applied to the canvas as an absorbent primer which had properties that gave a long lasting, luminous effect to the finished work.

In the early years of his career Munnings enjoyed a freedom in his choice of painting. Later, when success brought lucrative commissions, it came with the constraints of adhering to Patrons’ requirements resulting in a tightening of his style.

Munnings’ patrons expected to see the poise with which they sat a horse conveyed in their portrait along with all the recognisable details of themselves and their horse. He recalled having to create a portrait likeness in no more than an inch and a half.

Always, Munnings would begin by placing the face first on the canvas. It was vital to position this accurately, in order for the rest of the composition to balance.

Munnings equestrian portraits were often painted over several sites on multiple dates. An exemplar of this is the portrait of Sir Raymond Greene. Invited by Sir Raymond in the winter of 1919, to his estate in Leicestershire, Munnings gained first hand views of the landscape for the background of the portrait.

Sir Raymond posed, mounted upon his horse. This was not uneventful, in that Sir Raymond was unseated when his horse reared. Despite this Munnings was able to make his initial studies. The portrait was resumed in Munnings London studio at Glebe Place where Sir Raymond sat on a chair which had been placed on top of a table in order to give Munnings the correct height and angle as if his sitter were sat upon his horse.

Munnings stayed on Exmoor during World War II when his home Castle House in Dedham was requisitioned. He took this opportunity to paint many landscape scenes.

He developed a habit of carrying his brushes separately in a brown paper roll to ensure he had a large variety to use. On one expedition he travelled a twelve-mile journey to Badgworthy Water only to find, he had forgotten his paintbrushes!
“With no brushes, I viciously chewed the ends of pieces of wood, tied paint rags on sticks, sought out minute fir-cones … some of these matted with fine strands of grass. A teasel was a grand thing on such an occasion. Cursing and raging - not to be beaten, I found that with these tools I could do a lot …”

Munnings had been painting a Withypool farmer, Froude Bawden, driving his sheep. He returned home with the study and placed it in front of a scene he had painted earlier of Oare Hill, Exmoor.
With one work in front of the other Munnings saw a new composition evolve. One which would encompass the farmer his sheep and the brooding hill in the background.

The work illustrated here is the result of the imaginative composition formulated by Munnings after seeing the two separate works standing close to each other.

Painting canoes on the river had its challenges. Munnings would tie the canoe fore and aft to overhanging boughs alongside the river. This prevented it from drifting away down the river Stour. A long willow pole thrust from the bank, out to the canoe, kept it away from the bank and in place.

There were problems with painting by the river, strong breezes which caused ripples on the water and unsteadied canvases on the land. On one occasion Munnings lost his hat when it was blown off and went down the river, “never to be found!”

He relished the challenges of capturing the bright sunlight streaming through the transparent Japanese sunshade which he called “a challenge to the eye”

Munnings had known Mr and Mrs Prince for many years. On the occasion when this sketchbook was used he was painting them in Paris. Given free range to choose a base with a good north light, he selected a room in the Hotel d’Orsay.
Munnings wrote that Mrs Prince was inclined to be late for her sittings making the short time he had critical for finalising her facial studies. Top right, the box surrounding the head of Mrs Prince is a technique used by artists to aid in achieving perspective, especially when the head is in an angled or inclined pose.
In the event, Mrs Prince returned to America before completion of her portrait and arranged for a model from ‘Worth’ to sit in her dress, in place of her, to enable Munnings to finish the picture.

Munnings painted the first version of Tagg's Island in a loose and painterly style. Compositionally the figures are threaded together by linked and overlapping arms, creating a coherent group. Harmonised by the application of repeated colours; greens and yellows, forming shadows and highlights. The bright blue of the Thames and the land beyond gives the painting considerable depth in contrast to the frieze like grouping of figures in the foreground.

There is a sense of immediacy to this second version of Tagg's Island, the reality was, that a considerable amount of prior planning had taken place. Recently discovered jottings by Munnings in one of his notebooks provides a rare insight into his costings for the many elements needed to complete his composition, including champagne for the table, dresses for the models, the number of days needed for models to pose and calculations of their fees.

When commissioned to paint Mr J.V. Rank’s race horses Munnings suffered from a severe attack of gout. He was unable to continue with his work until he had rested.

It may have been during this time of rest that the opportunity arose to sit and paint Mrs Rank by their swimming pool. The composition of this painting is unusual for Munnings and may have arisen from the fact that he was forced to take a break from the commission. He may have experimented with making a picture for his own pleasure.

High Stakes was owned by Lord Astor and following several requests from the Astor family to paint him, Munnings finally agreed in 1951, when knowing that the horse was in Newmarket.
High Stakes was not an easy model – he reacted to the sound of every string of passing horses. Munnings recalled:
“Meeting old difficulties again, I realised more than ever that an artist lives and works alone… An owner of a horse is never aware of the toil, the tense moments of the artist who strives to paint the animal.”

This was to be one of his last equestrian portraits.

A final word on picture making from Munnings:

“…the real way to do it is to have the right composition for certain on the canvas, and for one long day become a colossal genius, and sweep the whole thing down in a white heat. Know the subject as you would your own face in a mirror. Know it from the sky to the shadows on the ground, and then, simply write it down before the vision fades. As I have said, it is far easier to imagine a thing being done than to do it.”