I went to the second half of the two Cedic Morris exhibitions – abundant floriculture at the Garden Museum and more restrained landscape and travel painting tonight at Philip Mould & Co. I hadn’t really registered him as a painter before (although there’s a very good Self-portrait in the NPG), not having seen Richard Morphet’s pioneering Tate exhibition in 1984. I certainly hadn’t registered the extent to which his graphic language – outline drawing, acute observation, a touch of surrealism – influenced Lucian Freud and hence John Craxton (or was it the other way round ?). The introductory panel mentions that he fell in love with Arthur Lett-Haines in 1918 and that they lived together thereafter, without mentioning that Lett-Haines was married and that they all lived together for a year.
He’s no Georgia O’Keefe but he’s the best flower painter we had in the 20th century. Has he ever had an exhibition in the Sackler? Is he an RA ?
No, he wasn’t. Maybe not having been to art school and being a baronet counted against him. Charles
Also, Munnings disliked him as a Dedham neighbour. Charles