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With Christmas fast approaching, we hope the final newsletter from Benton End this year finds you warm and well.  Diana Grace fills us in on her new book and Simon Carter takes a look back at Cedric and Lett's relationship with the Colchester Arts Society.

Benton End has long been an inspiration to designers.  Recently a highly regarded menswear designer chose Benton End as a backdrop to launch his latest collection... interest piqued?

We will be able to divulge more in the spring.

Friends & Lovers

Co-editor of 'Benton End Remembered'Diana Grace discusses her latest book  

Michael Chase, one-time director of the Zwemmer Gallery in London and The Minories in Colchester, was a friend of Cedric Morris and frequent visitor to Benton End. I interviewed him when compiling “Benton End Remembered”.  Afterwards he thrust a plastic bag at me saying that as he didn’t know what to do with the contents, I might as well have it.  It was a ragbag of almost indecipherable letters and cards written between 1922 and 1925, mostly in Cedric’s hand, but as they did not seem relevant to the period of the Benton End days that I was working on, I consigned them to a top shelf, to be largely forgotten.

Images reproduced with kind permission of Gainsborough's House, Sudbury.
 

Some years later during my husband’s final illness, he started to read the letters and he urged me to do something with them as it would serve as something to occupy my mind “when I have gone”.  I subsequently enlisted the help of a friend, Andrew Campbell, who transcribed them with enthusiasm.  Together we produced the book “Cedric and Lett, Friends and Lovers” with a foreword kindly written by Philip Mould, OBE.  Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury and Philip Mould both gave permission to include illustrations by Cedric Morris from the period.  We added an appendix identifying as many of the names mentioned as we could.  The original papers, along with the transcript, we donated to the archive at Gainsborough’s House.

Andrew Campbell comments: Cedric Morris' handwriting did indeed seem almost indecipherable at first.  We decided to keep the lack of punctuation, the misspellings and the squiggles and crossings out; perhaps they said something of Cedric’s high-wire approach to life in those years.  Often written in pencil which had faded, I had to return to the letters time and time again to be able to transcribe every word.  Many were undated, but once in order and with the absence of Lett’s replies perhaps adding to the drama, the letters revealed a story with the power of a novella.

The letters compiled in this book and published for the first time, show just how intense, petulant and tumultuous the relationship was between Cedric and Lett, but in spite of the rows and jealousies, the bond between them remained strong and lasted until Lett’s death in 1978.  The book sheds light on the manner in which the two young gay artists lived their early life together in the artistic milieu of Paris in the twenties as well as the emotional storms they weathered.  The letters also contain references to the work which went into preparing Cedric’s highly successful London exhibition in 1924. Overarching all is the central part that art played in their lives.  This philosophy, revealed during its development in these letters, undoubtedly led to the huge impression these two made on a later generation of artists who returned again and again to Benton End.

Looking for a present?
Support your local bookshop

We are fortunate to have an increasing number of books about Benton End and its inhabitants available nearby at Hadleigh's own independent, The Idler.
A long-established second-hand bookshop, The Idler specialises in Art, Literature and Humour. 

Contact Jane Haylock at The Idler to place your order.

 
Contact The Idler
The Idler,  37 High Street, Hadleigh,  IP7 5AF. (01473) 827752
 

The Colchester Art Society 

Simon Carter takes a look at the role Cedric Morris and Lett Haines' played in forming this prestigious Art Society

Cedric Morris was involved with Colchester Art Society for almost forty years, as co-founder, exhibitor, committee member and President.

Immediately following the war Reg Hazell, Head of Colchester School of Art and Jenny Ward, an illustrator from Wivenhoe, discussed the idea of forming an exhibiting society in Colchester.  They called a meeting with Roderic Barrett and Henry Collins who both taught at the art school, and after this initial meeting they contacted Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines at Benton End.  The group, now also including Joyce Pallot, Sylvia St. George and Roland Suddaby, established Colchester Art Society in 1946.

Cedric Morris declined the offer to become the Society’s first President, and instead suggested contacting John Nash.  Nash accepted the offer and continued assiduously and with great energy in the role for over thirty years, until his death in 1977.

Cedric Morris was keen that the Society should make no distinction between professional and amateur and that all work submitted for exhibition be judged on its merits, an ethos that remains in the Society to this day.  He was prepared to accept work for exhibition that was naive in execution if it showed a vividness of imagination.  In the early days the Society also held an annual Children’s Art Exhibition (to Morris's delight, one can imagine), with the selection committee choosing work collected from local schools.

Colchester Art Society held its inaugural exhibition at Colchester Castle in August 1946, showing work by 37 member artists.  Cedric Morris encouraged his students at Benton End to submit work and many went on to become Society members including Lucy Harwood, Joan Warburton and Bernard Reynolds.

'Dowlais Top' 1943, Cedric Morris . Image courtesy of Philip Mould Gallery, London.
 

One of Morris’s exhibits in this first exhibition was Dowlais Top, South Wales, almost certainly the same painting that was sold through the Ixion Society, Ipswich to Mary Cookson, a student at the East Anglian School of Painting, and which remained with Cookson until its sale at auction in January 2020.

In the Society’s 1948 exhibition at the Castle, Morris exhibited a portrait of one of his students, the nineteen year old Lucian Freud.  This painting is now in the Tate collection.

Taken in the studio at Benton End, this image records the exact location Morris painted the young Lucian Freud.
Lucian Freud, 1941, Cedric Morris (detail), Tate collection.

Colchester Art Society’s permanent collection contains a fine Morris still-life, Cotyledon and Eggs, three works on paper by Lett-Haines, as well as work by several Benton End students including Lucy Harwood. Bernard Reynolds is represented in the Collection by Parrot Head, a bronze sculpture of 1971, which reprised an earlier series, and was based on drawings made in the early 1950s from the skull of Morris’s pet macaw, Rubio.

Cedric Morris was the Society’s second President from 1979 until his death in 1982.

Explore the Colchester Art Society

Benton Blend


The fruits of the magnificent old pear trees at Benton End have been combined with apple to make a delicious juice.  Pressed and bottled at a local Suffolk orchard the juice is to be made available at the Garden Museum cafe, helping to raise much needed funds.
 
More about the Garden Museum Cafe

Thank you John


For many months now John Cunningham has devoted his time to repairing one of the walls that surround lower garden at Benton End.  Always happy in his work and keen to pass on his knowledge, John is almost finished.  
Our warmest thanks.

 

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Benton End House & Garden Trust is a private limited company registered in England and Wales. Registration number: 11807625.


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