Biography
Cavendish Morton, was born at Edinburgh on 17 February 1911, son of the actor, art director and photographer Cavendish Morton (1874-1939) and his wife, novelist Concordia née Merril, and twin brother of the artist Concord Morton (1911-1979) with whom he produced joint work.
Morton studied under his father, who was also a theatre director, actor and photographer and lived at 33 Torridge Road, Thornton Heath. A painter in oils and watercolour who concentrated on marine scenes and landscapes and exhibited at the Royal Academy and was a Member of both the Royal Institutes of Painters in Oils and in Watercolours. During the Second World War he worked in the aircraft industry 1939-1945 and in 1946 he married the musician (Margaret) Rosemary Britten (1919-2000) and moved to Suffolk and taught at Old Hall School, Hethersett, Norfolk 1957-1967. Morton was art therapist to Hartismere Hospital in Eye, Suffolk where he lived, twice becoming Town Mayor. In the 1960s he made a series of art for children programmes for Anglia Television also illustrating books by Dorothy Hammond Innes (1906-1989) and designed the bodies of various cars; several running at Le Mans. A member of the Norfolk & Norwich Art Circle 1951-1967, from Eye, Suffolk, he also became a member of the Norwich Twenty Group and the Norfolk Contemporary Art Society and in 1963 he became chairman of the Gainsborough’s House Society in Sudbury, where he helped ensure its future as an independent museum and art gallery. Also a member of the Ipswich Art Club from 1950 and exhibited at the centenary exhibition of the Club in 1974, an oil 'Woodbridge Tide Mill' and a watercolour 'Cottage near Eye' and exhibited from Stanley House, Eye, Suffolk in 1977 two pictures 'Waves-Aldeburgh' and 'Breakers-Aldeburgh' and has had many exhibitions in London and throughout East Anglia with an annual exhibition at Aldeburgh Festival. In 1977 he and his wife settled a 6 Fairhaven Close, Bembridge, Isle of Wight, his wife died in 2000 and Morton died on 30 January 2015, being survived by their son and two daughters. On 29 July 2012, a book on the artist was published 'Conversations with Cavendish Morton'.
