Arthur Lett-Haines

Arthur Lett-Haines (1894 – February 25, 1978[1]), known as Lett Haines, was a British painter and sculptor who experimented in many different media, though he generally characterised himself as "an Engish surrealist".[2] He was part of a London artistic circle, which included D. H. Lawrence, the Sitwells and Wyndham Lewis.

Arthur Lett was born in 1894, the son of Charles Lett and Frances Laura Esme Lett (who afterwards married S.Sidney Haines). He was educated at St Paul's School.

In the First World War he served in the British Army.

In 1916 Lett-Haines married Gertrude Aimee Lincoln at Hailsham, but when he met the painter Cedric Morris in 1918, the latter moved in with them and in 1919 his wife Aimee left on her own for America.[3] Morris and Lett-Haines lived together until his death, Haines largely subordinating his own artistic career to promote that of his partner. This relationship lasted some 60 years, despite its open nature that included attachments on both sides such as Haines' affair with the artist and author Kathleen Hale.[4]

Afer initially living at Newlyn, they moved to Paris in 1920, becoming part of an expatriate artistic community that included Juan Gris, Fernard Leger, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Nancy Cunard and Ernest Hemingway. They returned briefly to London in 1926, before moving in 1929 to Suffolk.

In 1937, Morris and Haines founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Dedham. When it burned down in 1939, the school was relocated to Benton End, a mansion near Hadleigh. Operating on a live-in basis that mingled artistic development with a social circle, its pupils included Lucian Freud, Bettina Shaw-Lawrence, David Kentish, Maggi Hambling, David Carr, Joan Warburton and Glyn Morgan.

The school closed when Haines died in 1978, though Morris continued to live at Benton End until his death in 1984.

Portraits of Lett-Haines

A sandstone portrait sculpture[5] exists of Lett-Haines by John Skeaping dating from 1933. This work came about after the breakup of Skeaping's marriage to Barbara Hepworth, when Skeaping joined the artists' colony at the house of Cedric Morris in Higham, Suffolk.

References

  1. ^ Deaths, The Times, Mar 02, 1978
  2. ^ "Morris: More than a minor talent", Visual art, John Russell Taylor, The Times, London, December 11, 2002
  3. ^ Richard Morphet Cedric Morris The Tate Gallery 1984 ISBN 0946590060
  4. ^ Cooper, Emmanuel (1994), The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in the West, Routledge, pp. 152–5, ISBN 0415111013 
  5. ^ John Skeaping 1901-1980 Retrospective Catalogue, Arthur Ackermann (1991) p.39
  • Richard Morphet, "Morris, Sir Cedric Lockwood, ninth baronet (1889–1982)", rev., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 27 Nov 2007
  • Arthur Lett-Haines: With Cedric Morris and Lett-Haines, James Beechey, catalogue of Kathleen Hale 1898-2000 - Memorial Exhibition, Michael Parkin Fine Art and The Redfern Gallery, 2001

Bibliography