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Cedric Morris was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. Cedric grew up in Sketty, South Wales. On leaving school he spent his younger years intermittently abroad, regularly travelling across Europe and North Africa, whilst renting studios in Cornwall, Paris and London. In the 1930s, Cedric and his partner, the artist Arthur Lett-Haines made Suffolk their permanent base, moving to Pound Farm in Higham where his garden became much admired. Morris developed a post-Impressionist style for portraits, landscapes and highly decorative style for still-life.

Tirzah was born in Gillingham, Kent. After finishing school she attended the Eastbourne School of Art from 1925-1928. It was here that she met Eric Ravilious. In 1928 she moved to London and studied at the Central School of Art. Tirzah was a skilled wood engraver; She was commissioned to produce woodcuts for Kynoch Press and the BBC. Tirzah and Eric married in 1930. In 1931 they left London and moved to rural Essex where they started a family. She gave up her art to raise their children and to support Eric with his career. Thankfully Tirzah’s work is now starting to get the recognition it deserves.

John Northcote Nash was the younger brother of surrealist landscape artist Paul Nash. Nash never received any formal art training. However, his elder brother Paul, who had studied at the Slade School of Art, encouraged him to develop his skills. A joint exhibition with Paul in 1913 was successful, and John was invited to become a founder-member of the London Group in 1914. From 1916 to 1918, Nash volunteered with the Artists Rifles in the First World War. At his brother’s recommendation, he became an official war artist. After the war He became a teacher, taking a position at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford from 1924 to 1929. In 1929, he bought a summer cottage in Essex, where he would turn his efforts to painting picturesque East Anglian landscapes.

Dame Elizabeth Blackadder is a Scottish painter and printmaker. She is the first woman to be elected to both the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy. She studied at Edinburgh College of Art and then in 1962 began teaching there and continued until her retirement in 1986. Blackadder works in a variety of media such as oil paints, watercolour, drawing and printmaking. She paints portraits and landscapes but her later work contains mainly flowers and her cats. Regular trips abroad, particularly to Japan, helped stimulate her interest in colour and pattern. Her work can be seen at the Tate Gallery, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and has appeared on a series of Royal Mail stamps.