DEDHAM.- In the spring of 2015 Charles Henty had a problem. He had inherited his uncle’s working farm in France and with it an enormous tax bill. Desperate to protect the livelihoods of the farmworkers and maintain his uncle’s legacy, Charles resolved to sell two paintings from his collection. The only snag was that he had to prove they were genuine.

Cue the hit BBC series Fake or Fortune being asked to assist Charles prove whether one was by Sir Alfred Munnings.

The painting in question is a landscape of Dedham, the North Essex village in which Munnings lived and had, a century earlier, been made famous by John Constable RA. It was also home to the notorious art forger, Tom Keating...

Munnings’ great reputation had been founded on his depictions of people and horses, rather than countryside vistas, hence the interest of Fake or Fortune and the team’s subsequent arrival at Castle House, to call upon the experts of The Munnings Art Museum.

It was this experience that inspired the museum’s new exhibition Munnings and the River (1 April – 29 October 2017) - a unique opportunity to explore the artist’s work as a landscape painter, rather than as an equestrian or sporting artist.

The Munnings Art Museum Director, Jenny Hand says “Working on the TV show led me to confront the fact that if you say ‘Munnings’ people automatically think ‘horses’ and I wanted to change that perception, as he was so much more than an equestrian artist. That was when I came up with the idea for the exhibition. I wanted to shine a spotlight for the first time on the other side to Munnings, the landscape artist whose skies are brilliant and whose river scenes capture a time that has passed. In these works Munnings was doing painting that he loved and for himself, rather than the commissioned works for which he is much better known.”

Munnings and the River features almost 50 original oil and watercolour paintings, plus drawings, photographs and personal items. Except for four loans, all the exhibits are drawn from the museum’s extensive collection.

Correspondence between Munnings and his close friend, the Poet Laureate, John Masefield is also included in the exhibition and will mark the 60th anniversary of the publication of the artist’s book Ballads and Poems.

Rivers flowed through the painter’s life. Born beside the Waveney, Munnings played in and on, the water at his childhood home, the Mill at Mendham in Norfolk. As an adult he chose to live near the river Stour for over forty years, at Castle House. When forced away from this beloved home by painting commissions he wrote regularly to his wife Violet of other rivers along which he would walk at the end of a day’s work.

Munnings and the River meanders chronologically through the artist’s depiction of various riverscapes; from Path to the Orchard - painted in 1908 and capturing Mendham Mill – to an illustration for The Tale of Anthony Bell executed circa 1957, exploring and celebrating Munnings’ artistic and literary responses to the subject with which he held such an affinity.

The river remained a constant motif in Munnings painting, and also extended into his writing. Much of the narrative in the exhibition is in Munnings’ own words - taken from his three-volume autobiography.

The exhibition also reveals his deft use of the brush to recreate shimmering light on the moving surface of water and choice of colour. Indeed, Sir Alfred once declared “pink is the colour of the river”.

The Stour at Dedham and Study of a River Landscape both appear to be set at the end of a day where pink is used to create the warm glow of sunset. In contrast, the bright pink at the centre foreground of Langham Mill Pool on the Stour, a day time scene, lifts the tone of the work but does not seem directly reflective of the bridge or bank.

The use of differing brush marks provides each work with a contrasting effect. In The Stour at Dedham the crosshatched brush strokes of pink create the appearance of wind-brushed ripples on the river’s surface, while for Study of a River Landscape larger areas of lighter and more loosely handled pink hues convey the calm of still waters.

Jenny Hand again “There are many local scenes in the exhibition, which will be especially fascinating for our local audience, to see how Dedham has changed, or not. We are also hoping to create an interactive aspect to the show, by inviting people to share their memories of the river with us, either on postcards or via social media (#munningsandtheriver).”

To further enhance the visitor experience, the museum is coordinating a series river rambles along the Stour (in partnership with the National Trust at nearby Flatford) and a Plein Air Paint Out for artists in September, with special guest Richard Allen (Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year).

As well as the exhibition, visitors also have the opportunity to see a further 150 works by Munnings, located throughout Castle House, charting the rise of this miller’s son to multimillion pound selling artist.