Artists Cedric Morris and Lett Haines’ work showcased in summer exhibition Revealing Nature at Gainsborough’s House, in Sudbury

This summer, Gainsborough’s House, in Sudbury, is holding an exhibition titled Revealing Nature: the Art of Cedric Morris and Lett-Haines.

These two 20th-century artists were partners in art and love for 60 years from their meeting on Armistice Night in 1918, for the most part living, working and teaching in Suffolk.

It’s the first exhibition to showcase both artists and presents a retrospective of their works.

Featuring more than 90 works, the exhibition includes oils, watercolours, photography, pastel and ‘little sculptures’ made of found materials, all illustrating the breadth of their interests from abstract art, to portraits, landscapes and the flower painting for which Morris has become celebrated.

The show charts the artistic careers of Morris (1889-1982) and Lett-Haines (1894-1978) demonstrating how they became recognised as professional artists in Paris, London and New York and paved the way for future generations of artists, despite a lack of formal training and a rejection of the art establishment.

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The exhibition begins in 1919, when Morris and Lett arrived in post-war Paris, the centre of artistic innovation and experimentation.

Returning to England, they moved to Suffolk, first to The Pound, Higham, and started their famous East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in 1937, and then to Benton End, Hadleigh, where the school flourished with pupils such as Lucien Freud and Maggi Hambling becoming global artistic icons.

See landscapes which show Morris and Lett’s constant travelling in the 1920s and 1930s; portraits which give a flavour of their sprawling social network; the protest paintings in which the destruction of wildlife is vividly explored; the meticulously observed colourful flower paintings based on Morris’s passion for breeding and cultivating flowers; and the swirling, illusionistic, compositions of Lett.

Many of the loans are from private lenders, descendants of pupils of the school or friends of Morris and Lett, together with major loans from Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.

Revealing Nature: the art of Cedric Morris and Lett-Haines is on at Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, from July 6 to November 3