Sir Cedric Morris (1889-1982)

Cedric Morris was a Welsh artist, known for his portraits, landscapes and decorative still lifes of flowers and birds. He was also an eminent horticulturist. He studied art in Paris, briefly at the Academie Delacluse in Montparnasse in 1914, then in 1920 at the Academies Moderne, La Grande Chaumiere and Atelier Colarossi; his teachers included Andre Lhote, Othon Friesz and Fernand Leger. During the 1920's Morris travelled extensively in Europe and North Africa before returning to England in 1926 where he initially stayed with his sister in Dorset before finding a studio in Great Ormond Street in 1927. By the late 1920s he had enjoyed many successful exhibitions in London, most notably at Tooth's (1928) and the Leicester Galleries. He was elected member of the London Artists Association and the Seven and Five Society, for which he was proposed by Winifred Nicholson and seconded by Ben Nicholson. In 1929 Morris left London and settled in Suffolk where he was soon to gain an international reputation as a horticulturist with the creation of the first of his two great gardens. In 1937 he co-founded the East Anglia School of Painting and Drawing at Dedham, near Essex, with Arthur Lett-Haines. Among their most notable students were Lucien Freud, whom Morris later painted in 1940, and Maggi Hambling. In 1950 Morris went on to lecture at the Royal College of Art. Morris had many one man shows and a retrospective of his work was held at the Tate Gallery in 1984. His work is held in public galleries including the Tate, Tate Britain and National Portrait Gallery in London as well as the National Museum in Cardiff and Auckland Art Gallery in New Zealand.