Forest Scene: Man and Horses Drawing Timber

In April 1918 during the First World War, Munnings was attached to the Canadian Forestry Corps who had set up logging camps in Normandy at Conches, Dreux, and Bellme as well as at Jura in eastern France. For the next several months Munnings painted the troops and horses, particulary the teams of horses used to transport the timber through the forests. "Each company had a hundred and twenty horses, all half-bred Percheron types, mostly blacks and greys. A rivalry existed between the companies as to which had the best-conditioned teams. I painted pictures of these teams at work..." (A. J. Munnings, An Artist's Life, Bungay 1950, p. 315)

Most of these Canadian paintings were acquired by Lord Beaverbrook's Canadian War Memorials Fund and were exhibited at the Royal Academy in the winter of 1919. (Most of them are now in the collection of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.) These paintings were widely acclaimed by contemporay critics (The Studio, February, 1919, p. 110) and probably hastened Munnings election as A.R.A. later that year.