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This energetic study of a café interior was undertaken by
Cedric Morris in 1921 when he was living in Paris with his partner Arthur
Lett-Haines.

Morris and Lett-Haines (known as ‘Lett’) moved to Paris from
Newlyn in late 1920 and took up residence in one of the abandoned drawing rooms
at the Académie Delécluse in Montparnasse. Paris at this date was an artistic
epicentre where groups of young avant-garde artists would meet and exchange
ideas. The atmosphere was more relaxed and liberal than in places like London
and homosexuality was legal.

Although Morris studied in a number of academies in Paris at
this date, his main source of inspiration was found the surrounding cafés and
restaurants where he would sit and study people as they interacted. Morris
would record his observations in a sketchbook and would sometimes use these
sketches back in the studio as inspiration when enlarging his subject onto
canvas or board in oils. Morris made numerous studies of café interiors at this
date although his most accomplished is Café
Rotonde, Paris [Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury] which was painted in 1921,
the same year as this work. In both works Morris takes a distanced viewpoint -
he does not engage with his subject, instead he looks on from afar.

Considering Morris’s evident interest in this medium, it is
surprising that after he left Paris in 1925 he never returned to working with
pencil on paper, and instead focussed his attention exclusively on oils on
canvas. These early works on paper, therefore, are a rare and largely
underappreciated part of Morris oeuvre and
provide a fascinating glimpse into his capabilities as a draughtsman during a
period of great personal and artistic development.