Alon Zakaim Fine Art

Sir Cedric Morris (1889-1982) was a British artist and art teacher. He was born in Swansea but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his portraits, flower paintings and landscapes.

As a student Morris went to Paris where he trained briefly at the Academie Delacluse in Montparnasse before the interruption of World War I, when he moved to Zennor in Cornwall where he studied plants and painted water colours. There he became friendly with Frances Hodgkins whose portrait he painted. He was in London at the time of the Armistice in November 1918 when he met Arthur Lett-Haines with whom he began a life-time relationship, and at the end of 1920 they moved to Paris.

Paris was their base for the next five years, when they travelled extensively in Europe. Morris also studied at the Academies Moderne and La Grande Chaumiere. Morris had successful exhibitions in London in 1924 and 1926 and later in that year they settled back in England. Morris became a 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. He was especially friendly with Christopher Wood and renewed friendship with Frances Hodgkins.

In 1930 Morris retired from London and moved to a farm in Suffolk, where he welcomed many visitors including Frances Hodgkins and Barbara Hepworth.

In 1937 Morris and Lett-Haines opened the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Dedham in April 1937. Within a year they had 60 students, of which Lucian Freud was one.