East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing
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The East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing was an art learning environment established by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines in East Anglia in 1937. It was run on very idiosyncratic lines based upon the "free rein" approach that was then current in French academies. It had a great influence on many Suffolk artists and made an important contribution to art teaching in the east of England for forty years
The school was founded by Morris and Lett-Haines in 1937 at Dedham, Essex and described in a prospectus as "an oasis of decency for artists outside the system". Lucian Freud was among the earliest students. In July 1939, the building was destroyed by fire. The traditionalist local artist Alfred Munnings had himself driven round its smoking ruins gloating at the destruction of a dangerously radical tendency. Undisturbed, Morris told the students draw the burnt-out wreck. Towards the end of 1939 Lett and Cedric discovered Benton End, a rambling 16th-century house with gardens, on the outskirts of Hadleigh in Suffolk. This allowed the artists to live and run their school and also accommodate their students in one place. Lett was the 'father' of the community, in charge of its daily administration and as an enthusiastic cook produced two meals a day. Morris carried on painting and became an internationally renowned plantsman. The school's peak time was in the 1940s and 1950s, when Benton End was a "powerhouse of art and literature, good food and lively conversation". Ronald Blythe described it as "robust and coarse, and exquisite and tentative all at once. Rough and ready and fine mannered. Also faintly dangerous." It stopped really functioning as a school in the 1960s
Benton End was run on very idiosyncratic lines without any formal teaching. Rather, it was an environment in which artists could explore their potential. It was based upon the `free rein' approach of French academies which both artists had enjoyed while living in Paris in the 1920s. Instruction was kept to a minimum, the atmosphere being more that of a family of artists striving for a common cause.
In addition to Lucien Freud, students of the school include Maggi Hambling, David Kentish, Bettina Shaw-Lawrence, Lucy Harwood, Joan Warburton, Glyn Morgan and Valerie Thornton
