Iris Seedlings
- Artist: Sir Cedric Morris, Bt
- Date: 1943
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1219 x 918 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Iris Seedlings” by Sir Cedric Morris. It was painted in 1943, just before the Second World War pushed its way into Britain. Morris had already made a name for himself as both an oil painter and a serious iris breeder – he grew about a thousand new seedlings each year from his estate at Benton End in Suffolk. The garden there was inspired by Claude Monet’s Giverny villa, and it became the backdrop of many of Morris’s canvases.
In this work he gathers the freshly sprouted irises into a Chinese jug. He notes that 1943 yielded an especially beautiful crop; the flowers were painted very quickly so the picture could be finished before they withered away. The colors – white, pink, blue, yellow and purple – represent his own hybrid hybrids, bred by close in‑breeding.
Morris admired how Chinese flower painters conveyed the “deeper meaning” of plants. He aimed to capture that same spirit: a moment of life before death, a fleeting elegance, pride and delicacy that irises naturally display.
So when you look at the painting you’re looking not only at a still‑life arrangement but at an artist’s rapid, almost breath‑taking study of flowers in their very first bloom. It shows how art can capture botanical science and poetic observation in one instant.
See it in person
Iris Seedlings is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
