{"title":"Benton End Books","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"benton-end-remembered","title":"Benton End Remembered","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn 1940, Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, both established artists with international reputations who had become disillusioned with the commercial aspects of the art world, moved to a country house named Benton End, overlooking the River Brett on the outskirts of Hadleigh, Suffolk. The house had been uninhabited for fifteen years, and what they found there was ramshackle but charming: a capacious sixteenth-century farmhouse standing amid three acres of walled gardens lost beneath brambles and elder trees. They quickly made Benton End both their home and the new premises of the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing which they had founded together in Dedham, Essex a few years earlier. They would run the unique school there together for nearly forty years.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis beautifully illustrated book—edited by a former student of the school, who has brought together contributions and memories from generations of her fellow students—celebrates Benton End, the school, and its proprietors and students. Full of familiar figures who were regular visitors, including Francis Bacon, Ronald Blythe, Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, Elizabeth David, Lucian Freud, and Vita Sackville-West, the book brings to life the history of an idiosyncratic, powerfully influential educational institution.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Christine Edgeler","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52032051413256,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0972\/6846\/5928\/files\/BER.jpg?v=1780658727"},{"product_id":"cedric-morris-artist-plantsman","title":"Cedric Morris: Artist Plantsman","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis catalogue was first printed to accompany the Garden Museum's 2018 exhibition, Cedric Morris: Artist Plantsman. It was written by curator Andrew Lambirth. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"page-introduction section container\" id=\"page-introduction\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"page-introduction__wrapper grid\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"page-introduction__content max-width-m\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"page-introduction__text section-text\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBritish artist Cedric Morris (1889 – 1982) was the only person of his generation to achieve national stature both as a painter and a plantsman. To celebrate Morris, two concurrent exhibitions constituted the first major reassessment of Morris on over 30 years. These exhibitions, entitled Cedric Morris: Artist Plantsman and Cedric Morris: Beyond the Garden Wall were held at the Garden Museum and Philip Mould \u0026amp; Company gallery in Pall Mall respectively.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCedric Morris: Artist Plantsman, the first museum show of Morris’ work in over 30 years, showed how the two disciplines, of art and botany, intertwined to form one of the most remarkable artistic lives of the 20th century. As well as painting portraits, still-lifes and landscapes representing his expansive travels, Morris is best known for his flower paintings, which reveal his keen interest as a botanist – he cultivated over 90 new irises – and the exhibition at the Garden Museum focused on these horticultural works that took flower painting out of the taxonomic sphere, into an expressionist mode with echoes of surrealism and cubism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe home he shared in Suffolk with his lifelong partner Arthur Lett-Haines was a hub of artistic meeting and activity and in 1937 the pair founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. There Morris taught Lucian Freud, whose practice he was hugely influential in developing, and later Maggi Hambling. A contemporary and friend of artists Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Paul Nash and Christopher Wood, Morris was a crucial figure in the British Modern tradition and the exhibition will reinstate him at the forefront of the British avant-garde.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis exhibition was held in partnership with the exhibition Cedric Morris: Beyond the Garden Wall at the Philip Mould \u0026amp; Company Pall Mall gallery, a 30 minute walk from the Museum. This exhibition ran for the same length of time and showed Cedric Morris’ landscape paintings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Garden Musem","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52032056099080,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0972\/6846\/5928\/files\/CMbook1.jpg?v=1780407727"},{"product_id":"a-lesson-in-art-and-life","title":"A Lesson in Art and Life","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHugh St. Clair's \"A Lesson in Art \u0026amp; Life\" is the first complete biography of \u003c\/span\u003eCedric Morris (1889–1982) and Arthur Lett-Haines (1894–1978). This is a paperback edition of St. Clair's book. \u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMorris and Lett-Haines were at the centre of the Modern British art scene and were hugely influential in the spheres of cooking and gardening.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the London of the 1930s Morris became a sought-after and much exhibited painter of flowers, birds and landscapes. Lett was hailed as Britain’s first Surrealist. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCedric found London a distraction from is paintings and he and Haines left London in the late 1930s to set up the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Suffolk where pupils learned by encouragement rather than formal instruction. Students included Lucian Freud and Maggi Hambling. At the start of The Second World War Freud threw down a lit cigarette and the school premises in Dedham burned to the ground. Undeterred Cedric and Lett moved a few miles away to Benton End in Hadleigh to started again with renewed vigour. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCedric Morris planted a wild and romantic garden of plants from all over the world he had discovered on plant hunting trips with distinguished gardeners such as Cherry Ingram. Cedric became an award-winning gardener and breeder of poppies and irises influenced many gardeners and his maxim ‘right plant right place’ became an idea that hugely influenced Beth Chatto. He was greatly admired by Vita Sackville West.  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hugh St Clair","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57749584871688,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0972\/6846\/5928\/files\/Lessoninart.jpg?v=1780408177"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0972\/6846\/5928\/collections\/CMbook1.jpg?v=1780748602","url":"https:\/\/shop.gardenmuseum.org.uk\/collections\/benton-end-books.oembed","provider":"Garden Museum","version":"1.0","type":"link"}