Castle House (Essex)
Castle House is a country house in the village of Dedham in the English county of Essex . The painter Sir Alfred Munnings lived there from 1919 until his death in 1959 .
Architecturally, Castle House contains a mixture of elements of the Tudor style and the Georgian style .
Shortly after Munnings' death, his widow founded The Violet Munnings Trust Fund in 1962 to establish and operate an art museum in Castle House. This was in line with Munnings' desire to leave his paintings and property to the state. The Castle House Trust was established in 1965 and received the house itself, the surrounding land, all of Sir Alfred Munnings' paintings that were still in the possession of Lady Munnings, as well as an amount of money and securities to form the basis of a museum for the works of the Artist form.
Sir Alfred Munnings Art Museum
The museum, now housed in Castle House, is open to the public on certain dates from Easter Sunday until the first Sunday in October.
The original bequest to the Trust formed the basis for the largest collection of Sir Alfred Munnings' works in the world. By preserving Munnings' original furniture and artifacts from his former home, the museum gives insight into the artist's life, as well as through the works from throughout his lifetime. The Trust has since bought additional paintings by Munnings. The exhibitions change from time to time because the museum has both paintings on loan and loans to other museums and exhibitions.
The rooms in which Munnings created some of his most famous works have been preserved true to the original and are open to the public.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b An English Idyll (A Loan Exhibition of Works by Sir Alfred Munnings) . Sotheby's, London 2000, ISBN 0-9622588-4-9 , p. 180.
- ^ Sir Alfred Munnings Art Museum . Retrieved November 18, 2015.
Coordinates: 51 ° 57 ′ 0 ″ N , 0 ° 59 ′ 46 ″ E