Gainsborough’s House - the largest collection of Cedric Morris works in the country

Following the successful sale of a surrealist landscape by Cedric Morris last month, which achieved over £162,000 as part of the Art & Design Sale, we take a look at Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury, which holds the country’s largest collection of Cedric Morris works.

Charlotte Dixon, Events and Marketing Manager at the gallery, told us:

“Gainsborough’s House holds the largest collection of works by Cedric Morris, with 52 paintings and 62 drawings gifted by Maggi Hambling and Robert Davey in 2017. The collection, which remained part of Morris’s private estate until his death in 1982, spans his career — from early portraits and still lifes in Newlyn, to bohemian Parisian scenes, rare surrealist experiments, and vivid landscapes from his travels. His artistic legacy was explored in last summer’s exhibition, Revealing Nature: The Art of Cedric Morris & Lett-Haines, which later toured to Charleston in Lewes. The recent sale of a Morris painting at Cheffins Auction House highlights the enduring interest in his work and its connection to Suffolk’s artistic heritage.

The vital depictions of flowers, birds, people and landscapes by the celebrated artist and plantsman, Cedric Morris, have an enduring appeal. His unique approach to painting the natural world was an inspiration to pupils including Lucien Freud, Maggi Hambling and Lucy Harwood, and is now being appreciated by a whole new generation of artists and collectors.”

The Cedric Morris collection at Gainsborough's House 

Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Hadleigh, not far from the site of Gainsborough’s House today. The gallery also holds a variety of archival material and artefacts, relating to Morris and the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, including correspondence between Morris and Lett from the 1920s, early photographs of the school and information about the plants cultivated by Morris in Suffolk.

Fans of Morris’s work can view the whole collection at Gainborough’s House on Gainsborough Street in Sudbury, or they can see the collection online via the gallery’s website here.