Cedric Morris

(1889-1982)

Panel of Flowers 61.2 x 50.9 cm. (24 x 20 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Sir Rex Cohen (1906-1988) and thence by family descent
Private Collection, U.K.

'I like to think that behind this special painting an esoteric line of thought that expresses itself in symbols portraying the eternity of experience that flowers themselves have'

('Concerning Flower Painting', The Studio, May 1942, pp.121-132)

Although a frequent traveller, Cedric Morris spent much of the early 1920s based in Paris and the latter part of the decade working in a studio at 32 Great Ormond Street, London. During these years, the self-taught Morris developed complex surrealist, abstract and portrait practices. He engaged with leading art and society figures of the day, developing friendships as broad as Nancy Cunard and Peggy Guggenheim, Winifred and Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood and John Banting. He staged his first one-man exhibition in Rome in 1922 and was represented in the British Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 1928 (and again in 1932). He exhibited as part of the Seven & Five Society and had one man shows with Arthur Tooth and in The Hague. Following a decade of city life, in early 1929 Morris and his partner Arthur Lett-Haines took a lease on Pound Farm in Suffolk, known simply as The Pound. The move to the country was to be permanent, the couple latterly moving to nearby Benton End and there establishing The East Anglian School of Painting (and famously tutoring Lucian Freud).

Although the move from the metropolis to The Pound provided a fresh setting, Morris and Lett-Haines' vibrant lifestyle followed them. They hosted many an elaborate party which a student of Morris recalled 'at my young age showed me what real parties were! People would turn up from all over Suffolk, or drive down from London, often in fancy dress. I remember John Banting wearing a magnificent head-dress made from rolled newspapers, Daphne Bousfield in a leopard skin with blue varnish on her toe nails and Tony Butts in wide bottomed sailor's trousers and a string of dried gourdes round his neck ... everyone behaved disgracefully and had a lovely time!' (Joan Warburton quoted in exh.cat, Tate Gallery, 1984, p.48). To enhance the exotic nature of the Suffolk farmstead Morris and Lett-Haines kept a peacock named Ptolemy, a yellow crested cockatoo, Cocky, and Rubio the macaw, allowing them free rein of the house and gardens. Against this joyous background, Morris embarked on some of his most celebrated pictures – the riotous, vivid flower-pieces, such as the present September example. Much richer than the confines associated with the traditional discipline of still-life, these works exude the roaring energy of the environment in which they were executed.