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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)

Winter

SKU: 1526
Oil on canvas.

Size:
Height – 122cm
Width – 216cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
The British School at Rome, Lowther Gardens, London; Sotheby’s, London 14th October 1987, lot 118, purchased by Abbot and Holder; Alan and Susanna Powers
Presentation:
framed
Exhibitied:
Exhibition of works submitted in the final competitions for the Rome Scholarship of 1922, Royal Academy, February 1923; International Exhibition of Modern and Decorative Industrial Art, Paris, April-October 1925, British Section, Grand Palais (309)
literature:
Illustrated London News, loth March 1923, vol.162, p.366, (Reproduced) Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.344.

Winter was Monnington’s winning submission for the 1922 British School at Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting. The landscape is based on studies looking towards Clerebury Rings near Salisbury, undertaken during visits in 1921 to the artist’s cousin Dr. R. C. Monnington. In a review in the Observer, (22 February 1923), P. C. Konody praised Monnington’s painting for being steeped in the best traditions of the Italian Renaissance. His colour is dull, but there is a marked sense of style in his design.  Joyce Smith (1896‚ 1974) was one of the other finalists – her submission bears all the trade marks of a Slade student composition with its frieze like figures and references to old master paintings.

A link with the Italian Renaissance can be demonstrated more specifically in relation to the work of Piero della Francesca: the young peasant leaning with both hands on a spade is a possible echo from the Discovery and Proving of the True Cross (San Francesco, Arezzo). The man sitting on a rock in the middle of the composition appears to be based on the figure of St. Joseph (in reverse) in Piero della Francesca’s Adoration.

Monnington might also have been influenced by the tradition of Allegorical Landscapes in Dutch 17th Century paintings:

We are grateful to Professor Luciano Chelles for assistance

 

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THE ARTIST

Sir Thomas Monnington
Sir Thomas
Monnington
1902 - 1976

Painter, especially of murals. Born in London, he studied at the Slade School in 1918-23 and was Rome Scholar in 1923-26. He married fellow Rome Scholar Winifred Knights in 1924. Among his public works are a decoration for St Stephen’s Hall, Westminster, 1928, and the new Council House in Bristol, 1956. Monnington taught drawing at the Royal Academy Schools, 1931-39, and in 1949 joined the staff of the Slade, whose strong linear tradition marked his own work. Monnington is represented in a number of public galleries, including the Tate, British Museum and Imperial War Museum. He was elected RA in 1938, became its President in 1966 and was knighted in 1967. There was a memorial exhibition at the RA in 1977. Another traveled from the British School at Rome to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter and the Fine Art Society in 1997. From the 1940s Monnington lived in Groombridge, Kent; the local landscape inspired much of his post-war work. Monnington was one of the outstanding draughtsmen of his generation. He had a considerable influence as a teacher (Euan Uglow was among his pupils), and was one of the most effective of the twentieth-century presidents of the RA, turning around the Academy’s ailing fortunes. Remarkably he was the first president of the Academy to produce abstract paintings and indeed made no distinction between abstract and figurative art: “Surely what matters is not whether a work is abstract or representative, but whether it has merit. If those who visit exhibitions would come without preconceptions, would apply to art the elementary standards they apply in other spheres, they might glimpse new horizons. They might ask themselves: is this work distinguished or is it commonplace? Fresh and original or uninspired, derivative and dull? Is it modest or pretentious?” (Interview in the Christian Science Monitor, 29.5.67).

Selected Literature: Judy Egerton, Sir Thomas Monnington, Royal Academy of Arts, 1977 Paul Liss, Sir Thomas Monnington, British School at Rome/Fine Art Society plc, 1997

MORE PICTURES BY ARTIST

Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Study for Bristol Ceiling, circa 1952
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Design for Students Union, University of London, circa 1969
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Study of a laurel bush, 1919
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Thomas Monnington – Portrait of Winifred Knights
Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Nocera Umbra, 1925
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Winter
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Study for Christ meeting the woman of Samaria at the well, for Kippen Kirk, circa 1930
Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Design for the ceiling of the Mary Harris Memorial Chapel, (pale ground) University of Exeter, 1956
£9,500
Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Baptism, circa 1924
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Design for Students Union, University of London, circa 1969
£25,000
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Study for The Fifth Station, The Cross is laid upon Simon of Cyrene, circa 1960
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Suffolk Landscape, late 1930s
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Study for Winter, circa 1922
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Study for Allegory, c.1924
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Study for Allegory
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Cartoon for Winter, circa 1921
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
The Annunciation, circa 1924/5
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
Portrait of Winifred Knights, circa 1931
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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)
View from the ante-room window, Leyswood, circa 1948