Arthur Lett-Haines

Arthur Lett-Haines (1894–1978) was a British painter, draughtsman, sculptor and teacher whose work ranged across Surrealism, abstraction and experimental mixed media. Although closely associated with Cedric Morris and the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, Lett-Haines developed an independent body of work characterised by imaginative imagery, strong linear rhythms and an openness to unconventional materials. He described himself as an “English surrealist”.

Born in London, Lett-Haines became part of an artistic and literary circle that included D. H. Lawrence, the Sitwells and Wyndham Lewis. He met Cedric Morris in 1918, beginning a personal and artistic partnership that lasted for the rest of his life. After periods in Cornwall, the two moved to Paris in 1920, where Lett-Haines studied at the Académie Colarossi and encountered the European avant-garde.

Lett-Haines worked in painting, drawing, sculpture and assemblage, frequently experimenting with found materials and unexpected combinations of objects. His later works could incorporate bone, plant matter, metal, plaster and other everyday materials, extending the Surrealist principle of the found object into highly personal constructions.

In 1937 Lett-Haines and Morris founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Dedham. After the original premises were destroyed by fire in 1939, the school moved to Benton End, near Hadleigh in Suffolk. More an artistic community than a conventional academy, Benton End encouraged individual development rather than adherence to a fixed teaching method. Its students included Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, Joan Warburton, Glyn Morgan and others who went on to important careers. Lett-Haines was central to the running of the school and to the remarkable social and creative environment that developed there.

The freedom of Benton End reflected Lett-Haines’s own approach to art. His drawings and watercolours could move between observation and fantasy, while later works became increasingly abstract or Surrealist in character. Throughout his career he resisted a single recognisable style, preferring experimentation across different media.

Lett-Haines also helped establish the Colchester Art Society in 1946, alongside Cedric Morris, John Nash, Henry Collins and Roderic Barrett. He remained closely associated with East Anglian artistic life until his death in 1978.

The Redfern Gallery played an important role in the posthumous reassessment of Lett-Haines’s work. In 1984 the gallery mounted a major retrospective exhibition, bringing together paintings, drawings and constructions from across his career. Works from the exhibition subsequently entered private collections in Britain and abroad, and Redfern has continued to handle and exhibit his work.

Lett-Haines’s work is now increasingly recognised both for its own experimental qualities and for its place within the wider history of British Surrealism and modernism. His legacy is inseparable from Benton End, where his combination of artistic freedom, intellectual curiosity and unconventional teaching helped shape generations of younger artists.