Munnings is best known for his equestrian paintings, his love of horses stemming from his early childhood on the border between Norfolk and Suffolk. Throughout his career he received equestrian commissions and his work was especially beloved by the English aristocracy and the Royal Family. 

Munnings in Cornwall is open from 15 June and runs until 7 September 2019. There is a focussed selection of Munnings’s Cornish works in Gallery One, with the remaining ground floor galleries devoted to works by Munnings’s friends and contemporaries including Harold and Laura Knight, Dod Procter, Charles and Ruth Simpson and Samuel John ‘Lamorna’ Birch.

A selection of Newlyn School paintings is on view upstairs in Gallery 5.

Our next exhibition

Creative Tensions: The Penwith Society of Arts 1949-1960 

Image: Box Factory Fire, 1948 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham ©Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust 

Running from the 14 September- 16 November 2019 is The Penwith Society of Arts 1949- 1960. 

In 1949, a group of artists broke away from the St Ives Society of Artists to found a new group, the Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall. 

Seventy years on from this seismic event, this exhibition looks at the range of work produced by its founder members, many of them the greatest names of 20th century British art, including Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Barbara Hepworth, Bernard Leach and Ben Nicholson. 

It examines the impact that the St Ives rebels made at the time and the creative tensions that existed between them.

A selection of Newlyn School paintings is on view upstairs in Gallery 5.