Alfred Munnings
Sir Alfred James Munnings KCVO, PRA was known as one of Englands finest painters of horses, and as an outspoken critic of Modernism. Engaged by Lord Beaverbrooks Canadian War Memorials Fund, he earned several prestigious commissions after the Great War that made him wealthy.
Alfred Munnings was born onOctober 1878 at Mendham, Suffolk, across the River Waveney from Harleston in Norfolk. His father ran a watermill on the river at Mendham. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a Norwich printer, designing and drawing advertising posters for the next six years, attending the Norwich School of Art in his spare time. When his apprenticeship ended, he became a fulltime painter. The loss of sight in his right eye in an accident in 1898 did not deflect his determination to paint, and in 1899 two of his pictures were shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He painted rural scenes, frequently of subjects such as Gypsies and horses. He was associated with the Newlyn School of painters, and while there met Florence CarterWood , a young horsewoman and painter. They married onJanuary 1912 but she tried to kill herself on their honeymoon and did so in 1914. Munnings bought Castle House, Dedham, in 1919, describing it as the house of my dreams. He used the house a
Source: Wikipedia