Toovey’s are delighted to include the Studio Collection of Claude Grahame Muncaster, RWS, ROI, RBA, SMA (1903-1974) in their June auction of Fine Art on Wednesday 15th June 2016. The collection consigned for sale by a descendant of the artist.
Claude Muncaster was born in West Chiltington, West Sussex, the son of artist Oliver Hall RA. Born Grahame Hall, he changed his name for exhibitions and later by deed-poll to stop any comparisons or confusion with his father’s work.
He is equally well known for his marine subjects as his depictions of the British landscape and enjoyed great success in his own lifetime. He immortalised the Sussex landscape in his watercolours and oils. His work is represented in many public collections, including the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate, National Maritime Museum Cornwall, National Railway Museum and Royal Air Force Museum.
Claude Muncaster published a number of books, including ‘Rolling Round the Horn’ in 1933, a narrative of a voyage on a sailing ship from Australia to the British Isles, and ‘Landscape and Marine Painting’ in 1958 on painting techniques.
‘The Wind in the Oak’ was written by his son, Martin Muncaster, which covered the life, work and philosophy of his father. In his foreword for the book, H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, wrote: ‘… I look at Claude Muncaster’s landscape watercolours at Sandringham and Balmoral and the one big landscape in oils and I wonder in hopeless mystification just how he managed to do it. It is not that he just had a talent for applying paint, he had an unerring instinct for a subject and with some sort of secret antenna he was able to sense the atmosphere and then incorporate it into the picture in a way which was uniquely his. Technique and observation obviously played their parts, but there is more to it than that. Attitude, experience, application; certainly, but in the end there is no other word for it than sheer talent.’