Getting your Munnings worth in Dedham

This is a guest post by Nicola Baird reproduced from the blog Around Britain Without A Plane

The village of Dedham is in a sublimely pretty corner of Essex — especially on an autumn day. Tourists come here on an art pilgrimage seeking to find out more about two artists with deep connections to this East Anglian landscape. Many of us are familiar with Constable and his famous horse-drawn 'Haywain', painted at nearby Flatford Mill, but what about the equestrian artist Alfred Munnings (1878-1959)? 

Books about Munnings at the Munnings Museum shop.
Munnings excelled as a plein air painter, capturing the good times and summer light,
and starring beautiful horses, girls in frothy dresses, canvases filled with gypsy life,
backdrops of the River Stour countryside, racehorses. 

I love horses but they are horrible to draw: those sleek limbs bend so awkwardly when my pencil tries to fix them to paper. And their hooves! How does a horse stand on such a little sloping triangle? These are not questions you need to ask when you see the work of Alfred Munnings hanging at his dream home, Castle House just outside Dedham. His horse canvases are so realistic you can almost smell the sweet hay breath of his subjects.

If you know your horses you can see the thickened tendons of a racehorse turned hunter, the tucked up posture of a horse on the first world war front line, the tail flick of a gypsy pony brushing away a summer fly. But mostly Munnings paints the most beautiful horses, at peak condition. A lot of these were his own horses. Perhaps his most famous works are the race starts (which bizarrely I find I confuse with Degas' paintings) and the colourful carnival of travellers at Epsom Down during Derby race week or at horse fairs like Lavenham in nearby Suffolk.

As a bonus the gallery has a wonderful cafe open two hours before the exhibition. The food is terrific and the setting bucolic — green lawns, green fields, birdsong.

This is easy art: Munnings had an eye for beauty with a happy focus on horses and good looking women. For that period he was rather old-fashioned although that didn't stop him liking a party. Born on 8 October in 1878, Munnings was brought up in a mill, just like the one Constable painted in the Haywains (Flatford Mill). His natural artistic skills saw him apprenticed to a lithograph printer at 14-years-old. Over the years he developed a conservative style that many art critics lampooned. At the same time he had real antipathy to modern art (eg, Picasso, Henry Moore, Salvador Dali). Indeed his resigning speech as the President of the Royal Academy, in 1949, focussed exactly on modern art's limitations. It didn't go down that well with the diners.

Munnings was embroiled in the hunting set and made a good deal of money doing expensive portraits for the Belvoir Hunt followers, and others. His first big London show was in 1913, Horses, Hunting & Country Life at Leicester Galleries. By the 1920s he could charge £500 a canvas, which is £21,000 in today's money. He met his second wife Violet McBride, who loved to hunt, at Richmond horse show, and she clearly brought him social status and many equestrian commissions. Munnings did follow hounds but apparently he enjoyed long hacks on his own even more.

He bought his first horse when he was in his 20s and kept riding until the end off his life. Munnings knew how much he owed to his horses (quoted in the book pictured above AJ Munnings by Stanley Booth on sale at the Munnings Museum): "Although they have given me much trouble and many sleepless nights, they have been my supporters, friends — my destiny in fact. Looking back at my life, interwoven with theirs - painting them, feeding them, riding them, thinking about them — I hope that I have learned something of their ways. I have never ceased to understand them."

Munnings Museum is in this yellow painted house. When AJ Munnings moved
here he called it his "dream home".

At the collection my friend Eugenie and I quickly found favourites. Eugenie loved Shrimp, the young traveller man often painted on a cheeky grey Welsh pony called Augereau.

I fell for a showstopper, painted in 1932 - My Wife, My Horse, Myself. It's a conceited but beautiful painting of Lady Munnings riding sidesaddle on a stylish English thoroughbred outside her beautiful country home, in the corner her proud husband smiles by a canvas of the same painting. It's a show off portrait of Munnings' possessions, capturing the swank (albeit horse-centred) lifestyle of this miller boy-made-establishment. 

It also owes plenty to the then popular hunting writer, Surtees who barked (surely he must have barked!): "Three things I never lend - my 'boss, my wife and my name." It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1935, a rocky time in British finances, which might well be why it's also been dubbed: "The most defiantly British picture of the 20th century". Strangely it's the sort of insult that Munnings would have been taken as a compliment.

Painters Constable and Munnings would still recognise the River Stour at
Flatford Mill, just in Suffolk. It's now a very popular tourist spot.

I'm a huge fan of dogs and horses so it's always been painful to me that the late Victorian and early Edwardian animal painters, in particular Munnings but also Landseer (who painted Monarch of the Glen) and the stunning equestrian artist Heywood Hardy, all fell out of fashion as the shock of the new art exerted its magnetic pull. Country life may not have ended in the 1930s, but it feels as over as the time when families crowded into the mill cottages, six sharing a bedroom, and never left the country, never mind the country. You can see exactly what I mean if you visit the little National Trust property (free entry) a few miles over the fields at Flatford Mill.

But that doesn't stop a real sense of joy when you see Munnings' wonderful paintings (this collection has more than 4000) in his old home in this elegant Georgian family house. It's a visual delight to go into every room, and the studio, and see pictures which such a strong sense of place (there are around 150 on display).

I've been longing to see Munnings' paintings, but took my time figuring out
how to get from Manningtree train station, Essex (seen here with a glowing sunset).
 

Munnings' work can be written off as sentimental or chocolate-boxy (if you really don't like horses that is) but he had such grit. Next year expect a complete rehang as Castle House is taken over by the 1918 portraits Munnings did of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade as a war artist on the front line in France.

Munnings, by then pushing 40, has been blinded when he was just 19. For most of us a thorn striking your eye would be a life disaster. For a teenager starting out on his artistic career, without much money behind him, this should have signalled the end. Somehow Munnings overcame the disability forcing his sole good eye to let him paint well — damn well — again.

Gallop over to see his paintings in the house where he lived if you get the chance. And don't forget to take a break at the Garden Cafe.

How to get there: An early autumn day was perfect for the four or so mile walk across the
water meadows from Manningtree station via Flatford Mill (plus 20 more minutes from Dedham village). A friend with a car was a bonus. There are also taxis from Manningtree and a bus (see Munnings Museum website, then double check with coach provider).

• More info at https://www.munningsmuseum.org.uk 
• Address: Castle House, Castle Hill, Dedham, Colchester, Essex CO7 6AZ
• The museum closes for the winter on 31 October 2018 and reopens approx Good Friday (April 2019), check website. Admission is £10.
• Check Garden Cafe opening times cafe@munningsmuseum.org.uk, tel: 01206 322127 (option 5) 

Having your cake and eating it

Went to the RAF club in Piccadilly to celebrate the birthday of my old Shenfield School pal Mark, who went on to become an RAF helicopter pilot and all round hero. But he's not forgotten his Essex and West Ham roots, so Mark's wife Lyn made some suitable cakes to mark the occasion. Chocs away!

Essex and drugs and rock'n'roll

Enjoyed seeing the Ian Dury musical Reasons to be Cheerful at the Theatre Royal in Stratford. Based on the songs of Mr Dury, who was from Essex in case you couldn’t tell, the musical is based on the story of a group of fans in Southend trying to get tickets for Dury’s gig at the Hammersmith Odeon. Paul Sirrett’s script has Essex mentions aplenty, with a neon Billericay sign on stage, a memorable performance of Billericay Dickie and scenes on the A13 and Thorpe Bay beach. Dury contracted polio after swimming at Southend swimming baths and performed with a withered left arm; he would have been proud of the way the show gives roles to actors who are one-amed, deaf and in a wheelchair. Hence their emotive performance of Dury’s empowering anti-charity ode to disability, Spasticus Autisticus. Having the lyrics dislayed above the stage also allows us to remember just what a great wordsmith Dury was. It’s a riotously entertaining romp back to the punk era. As Ian himself might have said: “Oi! Oi!”

Homage to Canvey Island

The Essex Liberation Front has finally happened. Never mind Catalonia. There's a big piece in the Guardian about the Canvey Island Independence Party. Angered by plans for more housing, Canvey Island is seeking to escape the yoke of Benfleet, Thundersley and Hadleigh and establish a council that is separate from the mainland borough of Castle Point. At this rate of Essex separatism there could soon be one almighty struggle over the jam fields of Tiptree. Click on the link to read.

How many Essex girls does it take to saturate the media?

Something of an Essex Girl overload today. The Times has a full page feature ("The only way is out for Essex girl label") interviewing former Bloomberg workers Natasha Sawkins and Juliet Thomas, who started the petition on the Mother Hub website to have the words 'Essex girl' removed from the Oxford English Dictionary. They also have a hash tag campaign where successful women reclaim the phrase with #iamanessexgirl.

The Sun also covers the furore while the Evening Standard has a feature proclaiming "Essex girl campaigners win meeting with bosses of dictionary." The Victoria Derbyshire Show on BBC interviewed several Essex women talking about the petition while tomorrow's Guardian has a Pass Notes on Essex Girls. Meanwhile the publishers of the Oxford Dictionary thank the campaigners for their interest but say they can't exclude offensive terms. And rather ironically, the well-intentoned petition seems to have bought the phrase Essex girl right back into the public consciousness…

Should Essex Girl be removed from the Dictionary?

Interesting piece in inews reporting that 3000 people have signed a petition to have the term 'Essex Girl' removed from the Oxford English Dictionary. The petition was set up by campaign group the Mother Hub and objects to the dictionary definition of an Essex Girl as: “A type of young woman, supposedly to be found in and around Essex, and variously characterised as unintelligent, promiscuous, and materialistic.” 

They have a point, but after Towie and 25 years of usage they may find it difficult to achieve their aim. And there's a similar case for removing the words Essex Man from the dictionary, who is described as: "A new type of Conservative voter typically (esp. contemptuously) characterised as a brash, self-made young businessman who benefited from the entrepreneurial wealth created by Thatcherite policies.”

As I mention in my book The Joy of Essex, in the first series of The Only Way Is Essex Sam Faiers and Amy Childs discuss the dictionary definition of Essex Girl over a large glass of Rose. Sam says that the word Essex Girl is “actually in the Dictionary.” Amy asks if it means “glamorous… what it right slags us off… shu’ up! You’re having me on! I thought it meant like classy…” Sam replies, “It’s like stilettoes and men.” Amy then comments: “The person that’s obviously done the Dictionary who is it? I’m being serious. Is he from Essex or is he from wherever, like the north or Manchester? If they were from Essex they wouldn’t write that.”

Amy is reputedly worth £5 million, which rather disproves the stereotype. Meanwhile the person that done the dictionary may be in for even more grief if the petition continues to grow.

Be seated for Billy Bragg

Barking Bard Billy Bragg has finally been given a seat — not in Parliament but at Beam Valley Park on the Havering/Barking border. A metal silhouette of the songwriter stands by his portrait bench. Three benches have been installed by the charity Sustrans, which encourages people to travel by foot and bike. Billy explains on his Facebook page: "The figures represent three people from each of the boroughs. The soldier, W/O Ian Fisher who died in Helmand, is from Havering, the figure at the sewing machine represents the Dagenham women who went on strike at Fords in the 1960s for equal pay and I come from Barking." No truth in the rumour he's recording a new song Between the Walks to mark his bench.

Out of Essex in Cheshunt

Yet another Essex shop spotted outside Essex. I've already blogged about the Essex Boutique in Kings Lynn and while in Cheshunt (which is in Hertfordshire but is clearly spiritually in Essex) we came across this lash, nails and pampering emporium, Out of Essex.

Wilko lives!

Fantastic news that Wilko Johnson, having been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer 18 months ago and told he had just ten months to live, is now free of the disease. Wilko's had some radical surgery, having his tumour ("the size of a baby, man") removed, and he is now cancer-free. The former Doctor Feelgood legend revealed the news while picking up a Q Icon award and making a very funny and moving speech. Wilko's outlook has also had something to do with his beating death. He was always positive and decided to give life one last scattergun solo, producing Going Back Home a great album with Roger Daltrey in the process. Check out his biography Looking Back at Me too for the stories of a great Essex man. I'm also proud to have included a Wilko live gig in Canvey Island in my book The Joy of Essex. He does it right.

Suits you, sir: Grayson takes on the Default Male

Enjoyed a very entertaining performance from Grayson Perry in conversation with Miranda Sawyer at the Royal Institution of Great Britain last night. Perry was discussing his essay on the “Default Male” (ie middle aged white men in suits) in the current issue of the New Statesman, which he guest edited. Perry is certainly very perceptive in his take on how the suit denotes authority and seriousness, but is also a way of attaining invisibility and concealing how Default Man's values dominate society.

Grayson was certainly not in a suit himself, as he was wearing orange platform shoes with pink tights and one of his ‘Bo Peep’ dresses designed by St Martin’s School of Art Students. He spoke about growing up in Chelmsford and how his Dad left at four, followed by a bad relationship with his step-dad and mentioned the perpetual unease of an Essex Man like himself when confronted with Default Males in suits, thinking, “I shouldn’t be here I’m just a geezer!”

Indeed, it was nice to hear Perry’s accent frequently veer into familiar Essex glottal stops. A couple of years ago he confessed: ““I have a thick crust of Islington but if you cut me, you find Essex there. The tone of my taste decisions is often very Essex, but I put an Islington spin on them. That might be the deciding fact in my entire oeuvre.”

Other confessions included the fact that he is a “domestic patriarch” in his home, not doing as many chores as he should, and that when he went cycling, he discovered that he was “a very competitive Alpha Male.” He was also very funny about being both a personality and an artist. When art people start complaining that he’s too accessible, he says, “I have to remind them they’re in the leisure business!” As A A Gill quipped, “Let’s make Grayson Perry King and Queen of England.”

Made in Dagenham: the musical

Our extended family certainly enjoyed Made in Dagenham at the Adelphi Theatre on Saturday night. The show sticks fairly closely to the film's plot about "the Essex Girls who changed the world", but the songs, such as the sixties-pastiche of Everybody Out and Dagenham Girls are very catchy and encouragingly the Adelphi was sold out. The sets are striking too, with a house seen through the letters of Made in Dagenham and some imaginative car plant and sewing machine backdrops and a parody of Miss Saigon with a helicopter scene. Gemma Arterton does well in the lead role of Rita O'Grady, while Mark Hadfield and Sophie-Louise Dann excel as a dancing and singing Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle. Never thought I'd hear a West End musical referencing Warley and Dunton either. Loved the sexist 1960s cinema adverts shown at the end of the interval and in a nice spoof song about America there's a not to Billy Bragg with "We've for Route 66, you've got the A13…" One to celebrate with a trip to a Berni Inn.

Clacton stations

Rarely can Clacton have been subjected to such a media frenzy. The by-election caused by Douglas Carswell defecting to Ukip has seen unprecedented coverage of the Tendring Peninsula. The Daily Telegraph reported that street artist Banksy had been to Clacton and painted a mural of a group of pigeons holding banners telling a green migratory swallow to "Go back to Africa, keep off our worms"and "Migrants not welcome." Tendring and District Council didn't see the political joke though and promptly painted over the mural, saying they had received a complaint that it was "racist and offensive." Strange, as in Essex people usually know the value of money. By deleting the Banksy mural the council had lost the chance of flogging the mural to some metropolitan types for up to £400,000 or cashing in on a tourist boom of Banksy lovers.

Meanwhile Clacton featured again in the Evening Standard in Michael Collins' piece, "Don't sneer at the real England beyond the M25", concluding that Clacton housed "the original Essex Man and those native Londoners exiled from a capital they no longer recognise… It might be unfashionable but for the moment Clacton is in the spotlight and relevant."  And on Radio 4's Today this morning there was a long profile of the "frightened and fed up" in the constituency, taking in the poverty of Jaywick Sands and the affluence of Frinton, where one boutique owner, who had moved to Frinton from Buckhurst Hill, complained of "no-go areas" in Ilford. In today's Guardian John Harris visits Jaywick, writes about a Ukip meeting in Clacton that attracted 900 people and looks at the emotional appeal of Ukip's politics to voters who feel abandoned.

As I wrote in The Joy of Essex the Tendring Peninsula feels a very long way from London and its isolation is summed up the railway level crossing gates that shut Frinton off from the outside world. Poverty and lack of investment are the biggest problems rather than immigration and the EU, though Ukip's appeal is accentuated by the lack of authentic principled Labour politicians. But if Carswell does get elected as a Ukip MP we'll be hearing a lot more about this no-longer forgotten Essex seaside town.

John Cooper Clarke: Essex is God's Own Country

Nice to see the Guardian's interview with punk poet John Cooper Clarke headlined with, "Essex is God's country" — a line not too dissimilar to the subtitle of my book The Joy of Essex. Despite that distinctive Mancunian lilt, Clarke has lived in Colchester for 25 years and says of his adopted county: "There's plenty of banter and friendliness… It's 50 minutes from London and 45 from Clacton-on-Sea so there's something for everybody really. Nice neighbours, keep themselves to themselves. One quibble you can't get meat and potatoes in fish and chip shops. All things considered though, Essex is God's county."

The Brentwood aesthetic

There's a three-page feature on how the Towie-look has taken over the country in the Guardian, entitled "The Only Way is Excess". Paula Cocozza visits Amy Childs in her Brentwood salon in search of the "Brentwood aesthetic". (Though chances are if you asked about aesthetics in Brentwood High Street most people would direct you to Harold Wood Hospital…) Cocozza has some good points about how the look has gone mainstream and is in part a tribute to black fashion, while pointing out that Childs "is beautiful, but damned because the Towie aesthetic is roundly mocked". Those sporting the Towie-look (thick dark eyebrows, false lashes, blusher, natural coloured lips, fake tan, etc) include the Duchess of Cambridge (eyebrows only), Mary Berry ("Essex Nan"), Paris Hilton, Nigella Lawson, Queen Elizaberh 1 (a lot of slap), the original Barbie Doll, Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, the Spice Girls and Jane Fonda in Barbarella. Click on the link to read. Brentwood has only gone and started an aesthetic. Shu' up!

Beyond the Point

Ran into Canvey bloggers Joe and Liam from the award-winning Beyond The Point at the Essex Record Office open-day. The local history-lovers started Beyond the Point in 2011 when they were 14 and it’s a fascinating exploration of historical sites in Canvey Island and south-east Essex. The videos posted by Liam and Joe really capture the joy of exploring derelict tunnels and buildings.

Explorations on the site include, the Occidental Oil Refinery on Canvey, Hadleigh Castle, the Coalhouse Fort at East Tilbury, a secret nuclear bunker in Benfleet (though it couldn’t have taken a full scale attack), the Devil’s Steps in Thundersley Glen and they’ve recently even ventured over the river to Kent’s coastal forts and the Cliffe Explosives factory. They’ve found Roman pottery and Victorian horse buckles on Canvey and a live bullet under Southend Pier. The site has really useful interactive maps too. Click on the link to read.