Artist in a landscape - a self-portrait by Cedric Morris, circa 1930

 

Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet (11 December 1889, Swansea – 8 February 1982, Hadleigh, Sussex), British artist, art teacher, and horticulturist. As an artist he is best known for his portraits, flower paintings, and landscapes. 

In 1918 he met Arthur Lett-Haines (2 November 1894, London - 25 February 1978, Hadleigh, Sussex) - Lett to his friends and acquaintances - a painter and sculptor (and, later, teacher), who had married just two years previously. Armistice had been declared and Lett-Haines and his American-born wife, Aimee, threw a party for similar "artistic" types; Morris was a guest. The two artists fell in love and shortly afterwards Morris moved in with Lett-Haines and Aimee. The trio planned to go to America together, but Aimee returned to American on her own the following year. The two men then moved to Cornwall. But they soon left for Paris where they spent the next six years, before returning to England, settling finally in Suffolk. Lett-Haines largely subordinated his own artistic career in deference to that of his more successful partner. In 1937, the pair founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing; Lucian Freud was one of their best-known students. Despite the relationship's open nature that included attachments on both sides, Morris and Lett-Haines lived together until the latter's death, a union lasting some sixty years. They are buried near each other at Hadleigh Cemetery in Hadleigh.

Morris and Lett-Haines with the macaw Rubio, circa 1930. (I don't know the name of the other bird, sadly.)