Picture Archive & Historical Portraits
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Artworks
  • Image Licensing
  • Philip Mould Gallery
  • Contact
Menu
Duncan Grant

Duncan Grant

Duncan Grant oil painting of Peter Morris in 1928 in brown currently for sale at Philip mould & company

Duncan Grant

Portrait of Peter Morris Seated in a Wing Chair, 1928
Oil on canvas
30 x 20 in. (76.2 x 50.8 cm)
Signed with initials and inscribed 'Peter Morris / DG' on the reverse
Philip Mould & Company
License Image
%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EDuncan%20Grant%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EPortrait%20of%20Peter%20Morris%20Seated%20in%20a%20Wing%20Chair%3C/span%3E%2C%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E1928%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3EOil%20on%20canvas%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E30%20x%2020%20in.%20%2876.2%20x%2050.8%20cm%29%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22signed_and_dated%22%3ESigned%20with%20initials%20and%20inscribed%20%27Peter%20Morris%20/%20DG%27%20on%20the%20reverse%20%3C/div%3E
To view all current artworks for sale visit philipmould.com Duncan Grant met Peter Morris in January 1927 and immediately began an affair with him. This portrait was made shortly after...
Read more
To view all current artworks for sale visit philipmould.com

Duncan Grant met Peter Morris in January 1927 and immediately began an affair with him. This portrait was made shortly after their first meeting. The setting for the painting is probably Grant’s studio at 8 Fitzroy Street, London, which previously belonged to Walter Sickert. According to the Bloomsbury Group scholar Richard Shone, the green wingback chair which Morris sits in belonged to Sickert and was left in the studio upon his departure, along with a similarly upholstered chaise-lounge. Grant and Morris remained intimate friends for the rest of Morris’s life. He later moved away to live in Mexico with his partner, the film actress Vail Morford, where he died in 1967.

Morris was an affluent dilettante. Grant’s biographer Frances Spalding described him as ‘a tall, diffident, wealthy painter’.[1] When Grant met him, he was living at 25 Wilton Street, London, with his sister Dora (later Lady Romilly), with whom he was very close. Grant’s life partner Vanessa Bell later painted Dora after she had married Lord Romilly (c. 1937, Leeds Arts Gallery). Morris was himself an occasional painter and a small landscape oil by him now belongs to Axminster Hospital – his only work in a public collection.

This is Grant’s first painting of Morris. Working from dark to light, the brushwork is fluid and broken. Each surface is modelled with contrasting, sometimes non-naturalistic colours. The right-hand side of the chair is built-up in brushstrokes of orange and green, for instance. Grant made two further paintings, both of which remained in the artist’s possession until his death. The more developed of these two works shows Morris seated in the same, three-quarter-length pose with his hair combed from left to right, as in this work. Such portraits of Grant’s male lovers became a recurring genre through his career, ranging from his paintings of Angus Davidson at Charleston in the 1920s to the numerous, heavily eroticised depictions of Paul Roche.

[1] Spalding, F. (1997) Duncan Grant. London: Chatto & Windus, p. 274.
Close full details

Provenance

Paul Roche;
Parkin Gallery, London;
At Christie's, London, 7 March 1986, lot 244;
Private Collection, UK.
Share
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Previous
|
Next
27 
of  33
PHILIP MOULD & COMPANY
CONTACT

+44 (0)20 7499 6818
art@philipmould.com

18-19 Pall Mall
London SW1Y 5LU

philipmould.com

FOLLOW US

Instagram

Facebook

TikTok

YouTube

Artsy

 

Join the mailing list
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Picture Archive & Historical Portraits
Site by Artlogic

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences
Close

Be the first to hear about our available artworks

Interests *

Sign Up

* denotes required fields

We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.