Ponies in a Sand Pit
- Oil on Canvas
- 28.25 x 30.25 in
- Sir Alfred J. Munnings
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The "Sandpit" series was one of two of Munnings‰Ûª major painting campaigns of 1907-1911. åÊThis series presented him with the challenge of painting the intense light of summer. åÊMunnings captures this light and heat by painting only a mere sliver of the sky, increasing the sense of enclosed space and the intense summer heat. åÊMunnings painted this work, along with the others in the series, en plein air, often working on two canvases simultaneously: ‰ÛÏa lesser one to make sure, should the weather break and‰ÛÓweather permitting‰ÛÓthe larger work being carried on, too, each getting a spell off to harden. åÊThe advantage of such a method is you gain a stride now in this one, now in that.‰Û Munnings‰Ûª largest canvas from the "Sandpit" series, measuring four-by-six feet, "A Norfolk Sandpit" was completed in the summer of 1911 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1912. The present example bears strong compositional similarities and was likely also painted in the sandpit near Hoxne, Suffolk. åÊSitting in the Royal Academy galleries, he remembers in his 1950 memoirs: ‰ÛÏLater in the day I took a critical glance at the Sandpit painting. åÊIn the quiet loneliness of the Galleries it sent me thinking of the 1911 summer when working in Suffolk. Painted thirty-eight years ago, I knew I could not do it to-day. åÊI had neither the energy to get ponies to a place forty miles away, make arrangements for them, nor to place a canvas and easel each day in the heat in the same place in the sandpit.‰Û The white pony featured in this painting was one of Munnings‰Ûª favorites and is seen throughout his oeuvre. åÊCalled Augereau, Munnings came up with this name after going to a play called ‰ÛÏA Royal Divorce‰Û at the theater one afternoon. åÊA character in the play continuously exclaims, ‰ÛÏI swear it on the word of an Augereau.‰Û åÊDriving the pony home after the play late at night, whenever the pony misbehaved, Munnings and his groom would correct him and exclaim ‰ÛÏI swear it on the word of an Augereau!‰Û and thus the name and the pony were forever one. åÊAugereau, wrote Munnings, ‰ÛÏnot only [brought] me wealth, but [earned] his keep a hundredfold.‰Û
- Collections: KCG 2014