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拍品專文
Gypsies Arriving at Epsom is the largest and most ambitious of a celebrated series of paintings of gypsy subjects that established Munnings's reputation and brought him his first financial success. This picture is the climax of many years of study and observation amongst this historic nomadic community and is a lasting record of traditions and a way of life that were disappearing.
Munnings was introduced to several gypsy families through his artist friend, Olive Branson, who had trained in the Orpen and John School in Chelsea. They had met at Frank Calderon's Summer School at Finchingfield in Suffolk in 1904. A number of young artists, including Augustus John, painted groups of gypsies at around this time. Branson had a house in Hampshire but spent much of the year travelling around England and Ireland in a caravan with a group of gypsies. Each autumn the gypsies would set up camp at Binstead in Hampshire for the hop-picking season. Hops are an essential ingredient used in brewing beer and the picking season would typically last for between four and five weeks.
In 1913, Munnings travelled to Binstead for the first time for the hop-picking season and wrote: 'Of all my paintings experiences, none were so alluring and colourful as those visits spent amongst the gypsy hop-pickers in Hampshire each September. More glamour and excitement were packed into those six weeks than a painter could well contend with. I still have a vision of brown faces, black hair, earrings, black hats and black skirts; of lithe figures of women and children, of men with lurcher dogs and horses of all kinds... Never in my life have I been so filled with a desire to work as I was then' (see A. J. Munnings, An Artist's Life, Bungay, 1950, pp. 287-9).
Munnings focused on painting a small group of gypsy families, who were closely inter-related, including Stevens, Gray, Gregory, Loveday and Lee. Inspired by these new and exciting subjects Munnings continued to paint them regularly over a number of years both at hop-picking and at Epsom where they congregated for Derby Week.
In the early part of the twentieth century, Derby Week was the focal point of the year for gypsies and their great annual gathering. In one place two central passions of Munnings's life collided and he reacted instinctively to his surroundings: 'Never have I quite felt the infectious joy of the races, the tradition of Epsom... The hill, the crowd on either side of the course: the gypsies, the caravans were Edwardian - Victorian - eighteenth century. For me Epsom expresses the true meaning of the words "The Races" ' (see A. J. Munnings, The Second Burst, Bungay, 1951, p.80).
Epsom inspired some of his best-known gypsy paintings, which were acquired by major public institutions: Epsom Downs, City and Surburban Day (Tate Gallery, London); Gypsy Life (Aberdeen Art Gallery); and Arrival at Epsom Downs for Derby Week (City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham). The gypsy pictures brought him his first significant financial and critical success. An exhibition called 'Gypsies in Hampshire' was mounted by the Connell brothers in their Bond Street gallery and two pictures alone sold for £1,650. The importance and technical virtuosity of the gypsy paintings was appreciated immediately. In an introduction written by Hugh Stokes for the City of Norwich exhibition of Munnings's works in 1928, he writes 'For his gypsies Munnings has long been renowned. The economic problems besetting these romantic nomads are not within our survey, but, if the Romany are likely to become a memory in rural England, it is to Munnings that the future will be indebted for a record of the past.'
Painted in 1953, Gypsies Arriving at Epsom bring to a climax, in a major exhibition work, all of the gypsy subjects. Gypsies Arriving at Epsom relates closely to Arrival at Epsom Downs for Derby Week, except it is larger in scale and more complex in composition. The models are the same in both pictures and were described by Munnings as such: 'There was the grown-up youth, Moocher Gregory, leading a fat, dark bay mare with long mane and tail, covered in brass-mounted harness, pulling a blue wagon driven by Mark Stevens's wife, wearing a black ostrich-feathered hat, on the raised front seat, Moocher's wife, sitting on the other side of her. Behind, children, dark boys and girls - wearing gaudy handkerchiefs. In the foreground, Nellie, Mrs Loveday's daughter, with coal-black hair - a real Romany - leading a goat' (ibid., p. 282). In Gypsies Arriving at Epsom Munnings has added the figure of the gypsy boy riding a pony at the far left of the composition repeating the central motif of Gypsy Life. The inclusion of more figures in the cart increases the sense of movement and animation amongst the group which is heightened by the vibrant colors.
Gypsies Arriving at Epsom was painted specifically for the Royal Academy exhibition of 1954 where Munnings called it, 'Arriving at Epsom: a scene from the past'. It is clear from this title and the nature of the work that Munnings intended it to be the culmination of all his gypsy pictures. By returning to subjects from earlier in his career that had brought him both financial and critical success, Munnings was perhaps acknowledging his debt to the gypsies as well as presenting to a new audience an insight into a way of life and traditions that, he feared, were fast disappearing.
Munnings was introduced to several gypsy families through his artist friend, Olive Branson, who had trained in the Orpen and John School in Chelsea. They had met at Frank Calderon's Summer School at Finchingfield in Suffolk in 1904. A number of young artists, including Augustus John, painted groups of gypsies at around this time. Branson had a house in Hampshire but spent much of the year travelling around England and Ireland in a caravan with a group of gypsies. Each autumn the gypsies would set up camp at Binstead in Hampshire for the hop-picking season. Hops are an essential ingredient used in brewing beer and the picking season would typically last for between four and five weeks.
In 1913, Munnings travelled to Binstead for the first time for the hop-picking season and wrote: 'Of all my paintings experiences, none were so alluring and colourful as those visits spent amongst the gypsy hop-pickers in Hampshire each September. More glamour and excitement were packed into those six weeks than a painter could well contend with. I still have a vision of brown faces, black hair, earrings, black hats and black skirts; of lithe figures of women and children, of men with lurcher dogs and horses of all kinds... Never in my life have I been so filled with a desire to work as I was then' (see A. J. Munnings, An Artist's Life, Bungay, 1950, pp. 287-9).
Munnings focused on painting a small group of gypsy families, who were closely inter-related, including Stevens, Gray, Gregory, Loveday and Lee. Inspired by these new and exciting subjects Munnings continued to paint them regularly over a number of years both at hop-picking and at Epsom where they congregated for Derby Week.
In the early part of the twentieth century, Derby Week was the focal point of the year for gypsies and their great annual gathering. In one place two central passions of Munnings's life collided and he reacted instinctively to his surroundings: 'Never have I quite felt the infectious joy of the races, the tradition of Epsom... The hill, the crowd on either side of the course: the gypsies, the caravans were Edwardian - Victorian - eighteenth century. For me Epsom expresses the true meaning of the words "The Races" ' (see A. J. Munnings, The Second Burst, Bungay, 1951, p.80).
Epsom inspired some of his best-known gypsy paintings, which were acquired by major public institutions: Epsom Downs, City and Surburban Day (Tate Gallery, London); Gypsy Life (Aberdeen Art Gallery); and Arrival at Epsom Downs for Derby Week (City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham). The gypsy pictures brought him his first significant financial and critical success. An exhibition called 'Gypsies in Hampshire' was mounted by the Connell brothers in their Bond Street gallery and two pictures alone sold for £1,650. The importance and technical virtuosity of the gypsy paintings was appreciated immediately. In an introduction written by Hugh Stokes for the City of Norwich exhibition of Munnings's works in 1928, he writes 'For his gypsies Munnings has long been renowned. The economic problems besetting these romantic nomads are not within our survey, but, if the Romany are likely to become a memory in rural England, it is to Munnings that the future will be indebted for a record of the past.'
Painted in 1953, Gypsies Arriving at Epsom bring to a climax, in a major exhibition work, all of the gypsy subjects. Gypsies Arriving at Epsom relates closely to Arrival at Epsom Downs for Derby Week, except it is larger in scale and more complex in composition. The models are the same in both pictures and were described by Munnings as such: 'There was the grown-up youth, Moocher Gregory, leading a fat, dark bay mare with long mane and tail, covered in brass-mounted harness, pulling a blue wagon driven by Mark Stevens's wife, wearing a black ostrich-feathered hat, on the raised front seat, Moocher's wife, sitting on the other side of her. Behind, children, dark boys and girls - wearing gaudy handkerchiefs. In the foreground, Nellie, Mrs Loveday's daughter, with coal-black hair - a real Romany - leading a goat' (ibid., p. 282). In Gypsies Arriving at Epsom Munnings has added the figure of the gypsy boy riding a pony at the far left of the composition repeating the central motif of Gypsy Life. The inclusion of more figures in the cart increases the sense of movement and animation amongst the group which is heightened by the vibrant colors.
Gypsies Arriving at Epsom was painted specifically for the Royal Academy exhibition of 1954 where Munnings called it, 'Arriving at Epsom: a scene from the past'. It is clear from this title and the nature of the work that Munnings intended it to be the culmination of all his gypsy pictures. By returning to subjects from earlier in his career that had brought him both financial and critical success, Munnings was perhaps acknowledging his debt to the gypsies as well as presenting to a new audience an insight into a way of life and traditions that, he feared, were fast disappearing.