AJ: The Life of Alfred Munnings 1878-1959 - Jean Goodman

With a foreword by H.R.H. THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH

The acclaimed biography of one of England's greatest painters.

Alfred Munnings was a bona-fide English eccentric who accepted the excitement of life with his inimitable phrase 'what a go'. His one real passion was horses and this passion, together with an imagination that thrived on 'trees, the wide skies, the open landscapes and the slow-flowing rivers' made him the greatest horse-painter since Stubbs.

In 1899, his first pictures were accepted for the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy and forty-five years later he was elected its President when he used his position to launch a notorious attack on modern paintings, dubbing Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso 'those three daubers', much to the delight of his friend, Winston Churchill. In 1917 he was invited by the Canadian government to go to France and paint their Cavalry Brigade in action. His sketches and drawings during that period are amongst the most powerful of his works

Originally published in 1988 as WHAT A GO - the life of Alfred Munnings, the 2000 edition contained much new information and expanded on the tragic suicide of Munnings' first wife. It included a new chapter about Castle House in Dedham where Munnings lived from 1919 until his death in 1959 and which is now The Alfred Munnings Art Museum.

100 years ago Munnings bought Castle House in Dedham, which he described as 'the house of my dreams'. This reissue of Jean Goodman's acclaimed biography, which has been out of print for a number of years, is in part to celebrate the centenary of Castle House and success of the Munnings Art gallery and Museum.

29 colour images + 10 b&w images