An artist and a gardener with an interesting life
Week Fourteen is Plum, Soft Purple, Peach & Milk Chocolate
This week starts with Easter Monday, I hope you’ve all got some Easter eggs.
It’s also the final days of free access to Sketchbook Revival. If you haven’t already, take a look below. There are over thirty lessons created by artists from across the world, myself included. I’d suggest signing up now and choosing one or two lessons, then if you’re finding them valuable, consider paying for continued access.
For this week’s prompt I chose a painting I find particularly charming with the pastel coloured eggs linking it to an Easter theme. The painting is called The Eggs by the artist and gardener Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris.
Morris (1889–1982) was born in Sketty, Wales where his father was an industrialist, an iron founder and a Welsh rugby international. He had quite an adventure growing up: after a formal education he failed the entrance exam for an army commission then worked on a farm in Canada and as a dishwasher in America before enrolling at the Royal College of Music to study singing. He quickly changed to art and studied at the Academie Delécluse in Paris before returning to England at the start of the First World War. Now medically boarded from military service, he spent the war years training horses for the army.
Shortly after the war, Morris met his life partner Arthur Lett-Haines and in 1920 the two moved to France where they soon became immersed in the Parisian art circles of the time, associating with the likes of Fernand Leger, Marcel Duchamp, Gertrude Stein and Peggy Guggenheim. Morris established himself as a serious artist with numerous exhibitions and by 1930 when they returned to England he had become well recognised, although a newspaper interviewer remarked that he would rather discuss horses and dogs than talk about his art.
Moving to Suffolk, Morris was drawn to the colours of the iris and began hybridising them. Over several decades, he created dozens of new varieties such as Benton Cordelia, Cascade of Gold and Raspberry Rimmed. The horticultural world took his work seriously and his varieties are still grown today.
In 1937 Morris and Lett-Haines founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing which operated from their home and garden. It became a creative hub during the war years and a multitude of students (including Lucien Freud) learned from someone whose artistic practice extended into the garden.
Morris continued gardening and teaching there, and at the Royal College of Art until the mid-1970s. He died in 1982 and the Tate Gallery’s retrospective of his work two years later confirmed him as an artist of real significance who had expressed himself through canvas, teaching and gardening.
Read more about Morris here and (with available paintings) here. There’s more about his irises in a profile here and information specifically about The Eggs from the Tate Gallery here.
“The Eggs”, oil paint on canvas, Cedric Morris, 1944
Colour Combination
The colours this week are Plum, Soft Purple, Peach & Milk Chocolate. Use them along with a contrasting dark and neutral light colour to create an artwork in any medium or style. Know someone who might enjoy a weekly dollop of colour and creativity? Why not share this post with them?
Shapes
Along with the colour prompt I am including some shapes inspired by the artwork which you can download as a PDF and print out to use as you wish
Love these colors! His Iris Flowers are amazing! Thank you for introducing this artist and gardener.