Alfred Munnings’ 41 works regarded as one of the most important collections of war art anywhere
Charge of Flowerdew’s Squadron painted by Alfred Munnings in 1918 Photograph: Beaverbrook Collection of War Art Canadian War Museum
Paintings regarded as one of the most important collections of war art anywhere have gone on display together for the first time since they were exhibited to acclaim in 1919.
Alfred Munnings’ 41 paintings of soldiers, horses, battles and ruined landscapes were made during his spell, in the final year of the first world war, as an embedded artist with the Canadian Expeditionary Force on the Western Front.
The following year, they were the star of the Royal Academy of Art’s exhibition of war art but have never been seen together since, even at their home in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
Emma Mawdsley, the head of collections at the National Army Museum in London, where the works have gone on display, called it a “momentous, once in a lifetime opportunity”.
Moving the Truck Another Yard by Alfred Munnings. Photograph: Beaverbrook Collection of War Art Canadian War Museum
She watched them being unpacked earlier in the week and was astounded. “They are stunning, they look a hundred times better than any reproduction, they are the most luminous, beautiful paintings.”
The paintings document the close bond between soldier and horse and include a portrait of the commanding officer Gen Jack Seely on his horse Warrior, an almost mythical animal who became known as “the horse the Germans could not kill”.
Seely’s grandson, the racing broadcaster Brough Scott, said there were at least 10 occasions when the horse survived what should have been fatal events.
Scott said the exhibition was an emotional event for him. “I don’t want to sound cheesy but it is a dream come true. I’ve been reared on stories of Munnings and Warrior all my life.”
Munnings is regarded as the 20th century’s greatest equine artist but for some people he will always be remembered as the drunken fool who, in 1949, ranted against modernism in a toe-curling valedictory speech as president of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Mortifyingly for Munnings and the RA the speech went out live on the BBC. “We all know now that you can’t go near a microphone with a drink inside you … they didn’t know it then,” said Scott.
Mawdesley agreed the speech tarnished his reputation but hopes the display of the 1918 works will help rehabilitate him.
She said there was an ironic mismatch between the speech and the paintings. “You look at these pictures, they are British impressionism, it was a modern style, he was a modern artist and very appealing. These paintings launched his career and quite rightly so.”
Justin Maciejewski, director of the National Army Museum, said the paintings would remind people of the importance of horses in the first world war. “One of the reasons the German offensive in 1918 failed is because the Germans had eaten their horses, literally eaten their horses, and their cavalry had been broken up.”
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