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Only Natural
Seemingly everything in Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines’s practices was in some way rooted in the living world, from bulbs to bones. In a new exhibition, Gainsborough’s House charts the intertwined careers of these artistic and romantic partners.
By Polly Nicholson | The World of Interiors Magazine
In a major forthcoming exhibition in Suffolk the vibrant paintings of artist plantsman Cedric Morris will be showcased alongside the Surrealist works and ‘humbles’ (little sculptures in bone, wood and glass) of his lifelong partner, Arthur Lett-Haines. Cedric’s flower paintings, landscapes and portraits owe their inception in no small part to Lett, as he was known, so it is fitting that their works are married in Revealing Nature, which spans a period from the 1920s to the 1970s.
The two men met in 1918 on Armistice Day and would go on to spend the rest of their lives as a couple both romantically and professionally. Seminal years in France in the 1920s were jointly productive, after which Lett put his own career on the back burner until a late period of fruitfulness. His decision to support Cedric in the pursuit of the latter’s joint passions – art and plants – enabled the inception and smooth running of the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, based from 1939 at Benton End on the outskirts of Hadleigh (WoI March 2023). With meticulous attention to detail and generosity of spirit, Lett undertook the roles of administrator, teacher and cook.
Benton End became a place of refuge and creativity for a diverse community of artists including Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling and Kathleen Hale. Cedric created a world centred on the garden, a place of education and inspiration for the artists in residence, which also exerted enormous influence on the 20th-century horticultural landscape. Its protective brick walls enabled him to nurture the collection of exotic plants he gathered on trips to the Mediterranean, and to breed broodingly-hued bearded irises that became the subjects of his still lifes.
Revealing Nature comes at a time of increasing interest in the lives of Cedric and Lett, following the majority gifting of Benton End by Rob and Bridget Pinchbeck to the Garden Museum, and in the afterglow of Sarah Price’s ethereally beautiful RHS Chelsea garden of 2024, which it inspired. The garden is being coaxed out of decades of slumber in a process of renewal by head gardener James Horner, who is peeling back layers of growth to reveal ‘Cedric’s ghosts’, the term coined by Sarah Cook (holder of the National Collection of Sir Cedric Morris irises) for the spring bulbs that are re-emerging. In 2026 the garden will open to visitors, but for now we have the joy of experiencing the works and spirit of this unique couple at Gainsborough’s House.
