Newlyn Harbour

Laura Knight recounts that Munnings' arrival in Cornwall in the Winter of 1910-11 was a source of great curiosity among the pupils at Stanhope Forbes' Newlyn School. Despite the fact that he already had a reputation for equestrian scenes and was notorious for his loud check horse-coper's suit, the East Anglian painter was extremely precocious. The present oil sketch, which takes a similar viewpoint to Forbes' A Sunlit Anchorage, 1908 (Private Collection) demonstrates not only his speed of execution, but his innate ability to seize the essentials of a complex scene from the fading light. Unsatisfactory paintwork is scraped away with a palette knife to provide space for the single white yacht moored among older fishing boats with their characteristic black and red oxide livery. It symbolizes the rapid changes that would overtake the fishing village. Steam trawlers would replace the old seine boats and pleasure craft would come to dominate the anchorage. For the moment however, as darkness falls, all that will remain is the glow of the harbour lights in the background.
KMc.