An Artist’s Life

VII. Royal Painter and President of the Royal Academy
In the 1920s, as Alfred Munnings’s fame as a painter of society equestrian
portraits and racehorses grew, it was inevitable that he would receive
commissions to paint the Royal Family. In 1921 he was asked by The Field
to paint a hunting portrait of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward
VIII) on Forest Witch (private collection), for presentation to the Prince.
Even Munnings was somewhat intimidated by the task of portraying this
handsome young man, whose status as future King, dashing lifestyle and
social conscience gave him ‘the greatest Press of any man living’ 1 . The
result was a grandiose six-foot canvas with Forest Witch striding past a
venerable oak, based on an oak in Mistley Park. Shortly after, Munnings
painted the Prince’s sister. The Princess Royal on Portumna (The Earl and
Countess of Harewood and the Trustees of the Harewood House Trust)
was a present to the newly-married Princess Mary, now Countess of
Harewood, from the hunting women of Ireland.
Royal ceremonial gave Munnings the opportunity to create some of
his most ambitious, colourful and effective works of the 1920s and 30s.
In this his path was eased by Violet’s acquaintanceship with the Royal
Family and the Court which dated back to her teenage years. Her prowess
as a horsewoman was noticed by Princess Alexandra, who delighted to see
her riding in Hyde Park. In the 1920s, when Violet was showing horses at
Olympia, Munnings was amused to see his wife disappear from the ring
and reappear in the Royal Box, ‘chatting away pleasantly enough, King
George laughing, enjoying some joke. Often had he seen her in the Row,
and Queen Mary congratulated her on her immaculate get-up and her
riding side-saddle’ 2 .
VI in the basement of Buckingham Palace, among the ‘water-pipes and
electric cables’ 5 , but out of the way of German bombs. Munnings was
made Knight Commander of the Victorian Order, an order of chivalry
which is in the personal gift of the monarch. Among his initiatives as
President was the exhibition at the Royal Academy of paintings from the
King’s collection, safely stored in the country during the War, before they
returned to Buckingham Palace. It was a hugely successful morale-booster
as the country adjusted to the new era.
From the 1940s Munnings largely ceased painting racehorse portraits,
preferring to concentrate on racing scenes and Starts which orchestrate a
large number of figures and horses. An exception was his 1942 portrait of
George VI’s filly Sun Chariot, winner of the 1,000 Guineas, the Oaks and
the St Leger (collection of the Jockey Club, Newmarket).
By the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, Sir Alfred Munnings was in his
seventies and plagued by gout and other health problems. His biographer
Reginald Pound intimates that the young Queen Elizabeth might have
been happy to sit to Munnings for an equestrian portrait 6 – in prospect
a stimulating meeting, given the knowledge of both on matters of the
horse. It was not to be. Munnings did, however, paint the Queen with
Aureole (Royal Collection; see cat. 53), casting an expert eye over the horse
that made her leading owner of 1954.
It was Queen Mary, a shrewd aficionado of the arts, who suggested that
Munnings should paint The Ascot Procession crossing Windsor Park (RA
1926; Royal Collection; see cat. 49). A monumental companion painting,
Their Majesties’ return from Ascot, was acquired through the Chantrey
Bequest for the Tate. Munnings’s posthumous portrait of King George V
riding Jock, his white Highland garron (Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich;
see cat. 51) did not meet with the approbation Queen Mary had felt
for the Ascot scenes. Although a touching and respectful portrait, she
thought it made her late husband look ‘too much the squire and not
enough the King’ 3 .
In 1943 Munnings was asked to stand for election as President of the
Royal Academy, the summit of achievement for an artist with a profound
reverence for that institution. Even so, he worried that the administrative
burdens would take him away from the core of his existence, painting.
Violet was philosophical, as usual: ‘ “Of course you’ll stand,” said she;
“but I won’t influence you. Think it well over. Remember the tie it will
be” ’ 4 . He was elected in the following year and Knighted by King George
1 The Second Burst, p.149.
2 The Second Burst, p.82.
3 Reginald Pound, The Englishman: a Biography of Sir Alfred Munnings, London 1962,
p.139.
4 The Finish, p.76.
5 Op. cit., p.80.
6 The Englishman, p.206.