Adrian Morris

Art Brokerage: Adrian Morris British Artist: b. 1929-2004. Born in London, 1929, Morris was the youngest of three brothers. His father was a reverend and moved the family to Somerset in 1931 when he became the Rector of the parish church of East Quantoxhead. Morris had fond memories of his childhood there: close to the beach and the Quantox Hills, the poet Cecil Day Lewis was a frequent visitor, and Morris' mother encouraged creative pursuits in her sons. At the outbreak of World War Two, Morris' father joined the army as a chaplain, while his mother took her sons to stay with relatives in the USA for safety. The school he attended in Vermont, Putney School, was dedicated to "the cultivation of the imagination and creativity through the arts," and by fourteen, he had decided to be a painter. Surrealism was an important early influence; family friend John Sweeney, Head of Poetry at Harvard, took Morris as a teenager to visit the studios of artists such as Yves Tanguay and Andre Masson. When he returned to London in 1947, Morris studied at the experimental school Anglo French Art Centre under Andre Lohte. In 1948, he was forced to take time off from his painting when he was called up for non-commissioned military service in the Royal Horseguards and stationed in Germany. His studies resumed at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris (1950) and the Royal Academy Schools (1951-54). A dedicated painter all his life, Morris sketched ideas for paintings at every opportunity, particularly when away from his studio or when teaching. His paintings are dominated by earth themes, particularly the vulnerability of our planet to natural and man-made disasters. During the 1960s, his work became increasingly preoccupied with the space race: distant, barren views seen through spacecraft hatches. Despite his constant output, Morris was reserved in exhibiting his work, although he did exhibit with a number of leading London galleries during his lifetime and in 1978, sixteen of his paintings were included in the Hayward Annual, alongside Sandra Blow, Elizabeth Frink, and Stephen Cox, among others. Writing in 1978 about his aims as a painter, Morris described himself as searching "in the dust for new life, or rather for the understanding from which it may be created ... we necessarily experience the world through our bodies - we have, as it were, a view from a house of blood, either in darkness or filled with light, looking out of terrains both hostile and seductive." Listings wanted by Art Brokerage.