The gardens that Morris created at Benton End in Hadleigh, Suffolk, garnered him international fame: he was highly regarded as a plant collector, often gathered on his travels, and plant propagator, particularly of irises. His deep and thorough knowledge of botany was the bedrock of his paintings, suffused as they were with his profound appreciation for each and every plant. These plants and produce were imbued with personality, taking on anthropomorphic qualities and seemingly having their own interior lives. Traditional still life painting takes on, under Morris’s paintbrush, an unorthodox modernist sensibility, part way between Surrealism and Expressionism.
The Schnake Pot is rare in both subject and scale; the great majority of Morris’s still lifes focus on flowers from his garden or indeed the flower beds themselves, often painted as if from within the bed as plants engulf the entire composition. In the present work, Morris has turned his eye indoors to one of the greenhouses at Benton End where he kept young specimens and most importantly, his succulents – in the foreground, the variety he developed himself Cotyledon Arbiculata Cedric Morris is seen cascading out of its giant terracotta pot, which itself seems almost alive, glistening with damp green surface fungus. Behind, an army of young specimens stand tall, flanking the central protagonist as Morris delights in the texture, warmth and luxuriant colour to be found in the greenhouse. The size of the painting is also significant as Morris rarely painted on such a large-scale and here he has really used the full expanse of canvas to celebrate his carefully tended indoor creations.
