Kenneth Maciver Morrison (1868-1936)

Lady in Blue, c1900

Oil on Canvas, 58 x 49cm

Signed: “K M Morrison”

Kenneth Maciver Morrison was born in 1868 in Esher, Surrey. The census of 1891 lists him as being a Lieutenant in the Scotch Militia. No information exists to tell us how he went from the Scotch militia to being an artist, but two showings at the Royal Academy (1900 and 1903) suggest it happened quickly. Both give addresses in Chelsea; a studio at 55 Glebe place putting him close to modern British masters such as Augustus John, Glynn Philpott, Walter Sickert and William Rothenstein.

£3000.00

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He exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1907, when Guillaume Apollinaire hailed Matisse the "fauve of fauves”, just 2 year after Louis Vauxcelles had christened him the “fauve-in-chief.” The same exhibition featured the drawings of Rodin, as well as a landmark retrospective on the then obscure Paul Cezanne.

He exhibited again with Matisse in New York in 1922, as well as with Othon Friesz (1879-1949) described as a “fauve-in-attendance” back in 1905, but now a leading figure. Roger Fry, Jean Marchand, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant featured in the same exhibition and had been instrumental in bringing post-impressionism to Britain in the preceding decade.

Morrison’s floral arrangements show an affinity to Bloomsbury artists, as does his affiliation with the London Group, which he joined in 1914. Robert Rattray Tatlock, friend of Roger Fry felt that “he was at his best” in their exhibition of 1926. Writing the introduction for the group’s exhibition in 1921, John Maynard Keynes advised prospective viewers "not merely to admire, but, if they can, to buy.”

Less than a decade before his death in 1936, Morrison featured at the landmark Kunstverein in Hamburg in 1927. The exhibition marks a high-point in his career, and for a European avant-garde soon to be besieged by the rise of totalitarianism and hyperinflation.