Lot Essay
Munns belonged to a dynasty of Birmingham artists, being the son of Henry Turner Munns (1832-1898), a painter of portraits, landscapes and light-hearted genre, and the father of Una Munns (b.1900), who painted portraits and (in the true Birmingham tradition) made jewellery. John Bernard studied at the Birmingham School of Art and exhibited for many years with the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, becoming an Associate in 1917 and a Member in 1923. He also supported the Royal Academy (1916-1927), the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. His address was 40 St. James's Road, Edgbaston, and he died on 12 January 1942.
Munns's portraits are distinguished by good draughtsmanship, solid modelling, and a taste for surface pattern. Other examples are a likeness of Sir John Martin-Harvey as Richard III (Royal Shakespeare Gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon; photo in Witt library) and a portrait of Major J.F. Hall-Edwards (Hill and Midgley; op.cit., pl.111). Our three portraits are said to represent his wife (Fantasy and Enigma) and daughter (The Lonely Princess). Very 'period' in feeling and given fancy titles, show that he was strongly influenced by early Italian art, Enigma having an Italianate landscape background and The Lonely Princess taking its composition from Bellinesque paintings of the Virgin and Child. There can be little doubt that Munns knew and was influenced by the slightly older Joseph Southall (1861-1944), who also lived in Edgbaston (at 13 Charlotte Road), and whose work owed a profound debt to Italian art. Indeed one of our pictures, Fantasy, has a background of a blue sea with sailing ships which is very reminiscent of the work of Southall himself. However the link with Southall should not be overstressed since many British artists adopted an Italianate manner at this period. For example, the concept embodied in The Lonely Princess had already been explored by T.C. Gotch in his well-known painting The Child Enthroned (1894; private collection), as well as by Frank Cadogan Cowper (see The Last Romantics, exh. Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1989, nos. 121 and 160, both repr. in cat.).
Munns's portraits are distinguished by good draughtsmanship, solid modelling, and a taste for surface pattern. Other examples are a likeness of Sir John Martin-Harvey as Richard III (Royal Shakespeare Gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon; photo in Witt library) and a portrait of Major J.F. Hall-Edwards (Hill and Midgley; op.cit., pl.111). Our three portraits are said to represent his wife (Fantasy and Enigma) and daughter (The Lonely Princess). Very 'period' in feeling and given fancy titles, show that he was strongly influenced by early Italian art, Enigma having an Italianate landscape background and The Lonely Princess taking its composition from Bellinesque paintings of the Virgin and Child. There can be little doubt that Munns knew and was influenced by the slightly older Joseph Southall (1861-1944), who also lived in Edgbaston (at 13 Charlotte Road), and whose work owed a profound debt to Italian art. Indeed one of our pictures, Fantasy, has a background of a blue sea with sailing ships which is very reminiscent of the work of Southall himself. However the link with Southall should not be overstressed since many British artists adopted an Italianate manner at this period. For example, the concept embodied in The Lonely Princess had already been explored by T.C. Gotch in his well-known painting The Child Enthroned (1894; private collection), as well as by Frank Cadogan Cowper (see The Last Romantics, exh. Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1989, nos. 121 and 160, both repr. in cat.).