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Sir Thomas Monnington (1902 - 1976)

Design inspired by Clematis Montana, circa 1960

SKU: 5724
White chalk on brown paper
12 x 6 5/8 in. (30.5 x 17 cm.)
Presentation:
folio

Size:
Height – 30.5cm x Width – 17cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
Lady Monnington; John Monnington

Provenance: Lady Monnington; John Monnington
Exhibited: Paul Liss, Thomas Monnington, The Fine Art Society 1997, no. 150.
Literature:
Paul Liss, Thomas Monnington, The Fine Art Society 1997, p. 57; British
Murals and Decorative Painting 1920-1960, Sansom
& Co, 2013, p.321



In late 1950’s Monnington embarked on a series of assymetrical designs which were inspired by a Clematis Montana growing at Leyswood. My interest in abstract is in trying to do something more than imitate, Monnington explained in an interview for the Church Times, (30 December 1966): I think it is possible that, through a more abstract approach, one can get nearer to the underlying nature of reality. A
still life entitled Clematis – exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1959
(34) – was possibly the point of departure for this more abstract
interpretation. This work is closely related to the ceiling of the Mary
Harris Memorial Chapel in its colour and construction. Bristol and
Exeter were undoubtedly instrumental in Monningtons pursuit of
Geometric’ paintings (a term he preferred to Abstracts). When the Tate
purchased Monnington’s Square Design (1967) he spoke of his abstract
paintings as “direct descendants from
my ceiling painting in the Council House, Bristol, which was my first
departure from purely representational painting. Since them I have been
increasingly interested in the subdivisions of surface areas contained
in equilateral rectangels (squares) and rectangles derived from square
roots. These two-dimensional mathematical relationships suggest to me
dimensions in depth, and provide a discipline which at the present time I
find as necessary and interesting as that imposed previously in
representational painting… You can cut out the blurb if you wish, but I
was trying for my own edification to put into words what I think I have
been trying to do in the last ten years”,
(letter of 12th June 1968)


Monnington at his easel 

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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

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