Can you identify Cedric Morris Suffolk scene?

An Essex auction house is appealing for help in identifying a Suffolk scene painted by painter and horticulturalist Cedric Morris in 1929.

Although the precise location of the Suffolk landscape is unknown, the work is to be offered in the Sworders’ Modern British Art auction next month with an estimate of £20,000 to £30,000. It is signed and dated during a key period in the artist’s career.

With interest in Morris and demand for his work on the rise, he has also been the subject of two recent London exhibitions – Cedric Morris: Artist Plantsman at the Garden Museum and Cedric Morris: Beyond the Garden Wall at the Philip Mould & Company gallery – and a third at Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury marking a recent bequest of 100 Morris works.

Prices at auction have also reflected the trend, with a 1934 oil entitled Easter Bouquet took £49,000 at Sworders in April 2016 – at the time a record for the artist.

The artist returns to the Stansted Mountfitchet Auctioneers once again this summer for their Modern British Art auction next month.

Although the precise location of the Suffolk landscape is unknown, it is to be offered in the sale with an estimate of £20,000 to £30,000. It is signed and dated 1929, a key period in the artist’s career.

Early in that year, Morris and lifelong partner Arthur Lett-Haines had chosen the country life over a London studio and taken the lease on Pound Farm in the village of Hingham.

This first Suffolk home, with its spectacular gardens and parties to match, would prove a hub of artistic activity with visitors including Frances Hodgkins, Barbara Hepworth and John Skeaping. In 1937 the pair founded the influential East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, first in Dedham and later at Benton End House, a rambling ‘Suffolk pink’ farmhouse on the outskirts of Haleigh that gave rise to the Benton End Group of painters.

With interest in Morris and demand for his work on the rise, he has also been the subject of two recent London exhibitions – Cedric Morris: Artist Plantsman at the Garden Museum and Cedric Morris: Beyond the Garden Wall at the Philip Mould & Company gallery – and a third at Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury marking a recent bequest of 100 Morris works.

Prices at auction have also reflected the trend, with a 1934 oil entitled Easter Bouquet took £49,000 at Sworders in April 2016 – at the time a record for the artist.

The artist returns to the Stansted Mountfitchet Auctioneers once again this summer for their Modern British Art auction next month on July 11.