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Cedric Morris
(1889-1982) Boswednack, Cornwallc.1932
Oil on canvas
24 3/4 x 27 1/2 in. (63 x 70 cm)
Provenance
Cecil Taylor;
Clifton College, Bristol, bequeathed by the above;
Sotheby’s, London, 26 November 2025, consigned to benefit the above;
Philip Mould & Company, London, acquired from the above.
Exhibitions
The Leicester Galleries, London, ‘Recent Paintings by Cedric Morris’, April 1932, no. 16;
The Atkinson Gallery, Street, ‘The London Group 1913 – 1939’, 1 - 28 February 1995, no. 29;
The Atkinson Gallery, Street, ‘The London Group 1913 – 1939’, 1 - 28 February 1995, no. 29;
The Garden Museum, London, ‘Benton End: A Paradise of Pollen and Paint’, 2 June - 20 September 2026.
This painting was made by Cedric Morris during a visit to Cornwall ahead of a solo exhibition at The Leicester Galleries in April 1932, in which it was exhibited alongside five other Cornish subjects [fig. 1]. Boswednack is situated in the parish of Zennor, on the north coast of the Penwith peninsula. The area later became associated with several major figures in twentieth-century British art, including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Bernard Leach. Morris and his partner Arthur Lett-Haines, however, were active in Cornwall before the arrival of these modernist luminaries. Their relationship to the region therefore belongs to an earlier phase of artistic activity in west Cornwall. Lucian Freud’s later recollection that Morris was known in these years as ‘the Cézanne of Newlyn’ is suggestive in this respect, pointing to the artist’s interest in the organisation of form and avant-garde perspective planes.[1]
The present painting is an experiment with texture and spatial compression; the stone buildings are arranged within...
This painting was made by Cedric Morris during a visit to Cornwall ahead of a solo exhibition at The Leicester Galleries in April 1932, in which it was exhibited alongside five other Cornish subjects [fig. 1]. Boswednack is situated in the parish of Zennor, on the north coast of the Penwith peninsula. The area later became associated with several major figures in twentieth-century British art, including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Bernard Leach. Morris and his partner Arthur Lett-Haines, however, were active in Cornwall before the arrival of these modernist luminaries. Their relationship to the region therefore belongs to an earlier phase of artistic activity in west Cornwall. Lucian Freud’s later recollection that Morris was known in these years as ‘the Cézanne of Newlyn’ is suggestive in this respect, pointing to the artist’s interest in the organisation of form and avant-garde perspective planes.[1]
The present painting is an experiment with texture and spatial compression; the stone buildings are arranged within a shallow pictorial field, emphasising the interlocking geometry of the scene. These elements emerge through thick, uneven applications of paint, giving the surface greater immediacy and a pronounced physical presence. .
The 1930s were a defining decade in Cedric Morris’s career, marking the consolidation of his mature artistic language and his wider reputation as a painter and teacher. The works from this period represent a moment of particular confidence and originality, when his engagement with the natural world was matched by a rigorous concern for pictorial structure, texture and form. In the 1930s, Morris’s career also took on greater pedagogical significance. In 1937, with Lett, he founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, establishing an alternative artistic environment that encouraged independence and nurtured the careers of some of the greatest modern British artists, including Lucian Freud.
[1] Richard Morphet, (1984) Cedric Morris. London: Tate Gallery, p.21.
