Epsom, Derby Day, View From Tattenham Corner 1928

Photo ref: 81595

More about this scene

Up to 20 stables ran their horses on the gallops at Six Mile Hill. Among them were the Nightingalls of South Hatch in Burgh Heath Road, another father-and-son team; Tom Walls the actor, who won the 1932 Derby with his April the Fifth; and George and Bessie Duller who both raced, he as a steeplechase jockey and she as a motor- racing driver. The Derby winner has always been celebrated by sporting artists, but it was not until Victorian times that race-goers themselves caught the imagination of the art world. In 1858 William Powell Frith captured the panorama of social classes in his 'Derby Day'. He worked from some of the earliest photographs of the crowd, and had many followers in Derby genre scenes. The most colourful subjects were the Gypsies, especially when they able to buy picturesque living wagons instead of the old bender tents. Dame Laura Knight sketched them often in the 1920s, visiting the Derby in a Rolls- Royce because it had a roof high enough to accommodate an easel inside. She made several other sketches of the crowd, including Prince Monolulu, the black tipster who made a name for himself with his exotic attire and cries of 'I gotta horse!' He came from St Thomas in the West Indies, but always gave his origin as Abyssinia because people had more respect for it.