From July the main exhibition at Gainsborough’s House will celebrate the colourful and unique art of Cedric Morris (1889–1982) and Arthur Lett-Haines (1894–1978), who lived, worked and taught in the local Suffolk countryside.

The exhibition will chart the fullness of their extraordinary and intertwined careers as artistic and romantic partners: from the 1920s and 30s, when they were central to the bohemian and avant-garde scenes of Newlyn, London and Paris, to the 1940s and beyond, when the pair were based in Suffolk, cultivating a haven for like-minded creatives and teaching young artists including Lucian Freud and Maggi Hambling.

Spread over two floors of the new galleries, the exhibition will bring together a large selection of paintings, drawings and sculptures from public and private collections.

Cedric’s love and intense observation of nature will be demonstrated by his vital paintings of flowers, birds, people and places. As pupil Lucien Freud noted, his contemporaries often regarded Cedric’s portraits as ‘revealing in a way that was almost improper’. Lett’s mysterious experiments with surrealism and abstract and organic forms are less well-known and ripe for reappraisal.

Image: Courtesy of Philip Mould & Company