On The Bure

The present work dates from the same year that Munnings exhibited his first two paintings at the Royal Academy in London, when the artist was only twenty two. Stranded (City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery), from 1897, showed his nephew and neice, Nina and Cecil in a small boat entangled in reeds in shallow water on the mill-stream at Mendham on a bright, sunny day. Pike-Fishing in January (Private Collection), from 1898, portrays 'Jumbo' Betts, a lithography assistant from the Norwich Art school as the model for another plein-air composition.