Sir Cedric Morris

Sir Cedric Morris (1889–1982) was a British painter, teacher and plantsman whose portraits, landscapes and flower paintings occupy a singular place in twentieth-century British art. His work is marked by strong colour, simplified form and a directness of observation that could be both decorative and psychologically penetrating.

Born in Swansea, Morris studied briefly in Paris before settling in Cornwall after the First World War. In 1918 he met the artist Arthur Lett-Haines, beginning a lifelong personal and artistic partnership. The two lived and worked in Cornwall, London and Paris before eventually settling in Suffolk.

During the 1920s Morris became increasingly involved in British modernism, exhibiting with the London Group and the Seven and Five Society. His portraits from this period brought him particular attention, while landscape and flower painting remained central throughout his life. He travelled widely in Europe and North Africa, and these journeys provided an important source of subjects and colour.

In 1937 Morris and Lett-Haines founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, later based at Benton End near Hadleigh in Suffolk. The school became one of the most unconventional and influential artistic communities in Britain. Rather than imposing a fixed method, Morris encouraged students to look closely and develop their own visual language. Among those associated with Benton End were Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling and Joan Warburton.

Morris was also an exceptional plantsman. The gardens at Benton End became famous, particularly for the irises he bred there, and his knowledge of botany fed directly into his painting. His flower pictures are among his most celebrated works, combining close botanical observation with bold colour, compressed space and a highly personal sense of structure. He bred more than ninety varieties of iris during his lifetime.

Portraiture remained equally important. Morris painted artists, writers and friends including Lucian Freud, Barbara Hepworth and Richard Chopping, often with a frankness and intensity that avoided conventional flattery. His sitters are frequently placed against simplified interiors or patterned backgrounds that heighten their presence.

The Redfern Gallery has a longstanding connection with Morris’s work. The gallery handled and exhibited paintings by him during the later twentieth century and mounted Cedric Morris 1889–1982: Paintings in 1990. Works from the exhibition subsequently entered important private collections, and Redfern has continued to present his paintings in exhibitions of Modern British art.

Morris inherited the baronetcy in 1947 and continued to paint, teach and cultivate plants for the rest of his life. A major retrospective was held at Tate in 1984, two years after his death, and his reputation has continued to grow through exhibitions devoted both to his painting and to the remarkable overlap between his art and horticulture.

His work is held in major public collections including Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum Wales.