30 Facts About Cedric Morris

Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman.

Cedric Morris was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia.

Cedric Lockwood Morris was born on 11 December 1889 in Sketty, Swansea, the son of George Lockwood Morris, industrialist and iron founder, and Wales rugby international, and his wife Wilhelmina.

Cedric Morris's mother had studied painting and was an accomplished needlewoman; on his father's side he was descended from Sir John Morris, 1st Baronet, whose sister Margaret married Noel Desenfans and helped him and his friend, Francis Bourgeois, to build up the collection now housed in the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Cedric Morris worked in the company of Alfred Munnings, under Cecil Aldin.

Cedric Morris was discharged from this when the army took over the remounts in 1917.

Cedric Morris went to Zennor in Cornwall, where he studied plants and painted water colours.

Cedric Morris studied at the Academies Moderne and La Grande Chaumiere.

Cedric Morris had successful exhibitions in London in 1924 and 1926, and later in that year they settled back in Britain.

Cedric 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.

Cedric Morris became especially friendly with the painter Christopher Wood, and renewed friendship with Frances Hodgkins.

Cedric Morris chose the country life to pursue his passion for horticulture.

Cedric Morris had resigned from the Seven and Five Society in 1930 and he resigned from the London Artists' Association in 1933.

Cedric Morris often went painting in his native South Wales, and in 1935 at the time of the Depression was moved by the plight of the people of South Wales Valleys.

Cedric Morris initiated a major touring exhibition of Welsh art in 1935, and was a regular teacher at Mary Horsfall's arts' centre at Merthyr Tydfil.

Cedric Morris studied at Benton End under Morris and his 1936 portrait of her was displayed at The Minories Art Gallery, Colchester.

Cedric Morris painted her portrait a second time in 1964 and she was a beneficiary under his will.

Cedric Morris died at Ipswich in 2001 and a small commemorative headstone is located at the back of Morris's in Hadleigh cemetery.

Cedric Morris grew about 1,000 new Iris seedlings each year and opened Benton End to display his collection.

Cedric Morris produced at least 90 named varieties, 45 of which were registered with the American Iris Society.

Cedric Morris used to walk the fields and hedgerows searching for softer colour variants of poppies.

Cedric Morris bred birds as a hobby and his expertise informed his paintings of them.

In 1946, along with Henry Collins, Lett-Haines, John Nash and Roderic Barrett, Cedric Morris became one of the founders of Colchester Art Society and later the society's president.

In 1947 the Morris baronetcy came to his father from a distant cousin three months before his death and Cedric Morris succeeded his father in the same year to become the 9th baronet.

Cedric Morris became a lecturer at the Royal College of Art in 1950.

From about 1975 Cedric Morris virtually gave up painting because of failing eyesight.

Cedric Morris had a distinctive and often rather primitive post-Impressionist style, and painted portraits, landscapes and very decorative still lifes of flowers and birds.

Cedric Morris moved in with Lett-Haines and his wife, Gertrude Aimee Lincoln.

The exhibition "Cedric Morris" was held at Tate Gallery 28 March - 13 March 1984.

Cedric Morris had donated a painting of a lily to the Gainsborough's House Society during his lifetime in 1957.