Arthur Lett-Haines known as Lett Haines, was a British painter and sculptor who experimented in many different media, though he generally characterised himself as "an Engish surrealist

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

". He was part of a London artistic circle, which included D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...

, the Sitwells and Wyndham Lewis

Wyndham Lewis

Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...

.

Arthur Lett was born in 1894, the son of Charles Lett and Frances Laura Esme Lett (who afterwards married S.Sidney Haines). He was educated at St Paul's School.

In the First World War he served in the British Army.

In 1916 Lett-Haines married Gertrude Aimee Lincoln at Hailsham, but when he met the painter Cedric Morris

Cedric Morris

Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea but worked mainly in East Anglia...

 in 1918, the latter moved in with them and in 1919 his wife Aimee left on her own for America. Morris and Lett-Haines lived together until his death, Haines largely subordinating his own artistic career to promote that of his partner. This relationship lasted some 60 years, despite its open nature that included attachments on both sides such as Haines' affair with the artist and author Kathleen Hale

Kathleen Hale

Kathleen Hale was a British artist, illustrator, and children's author. She is best remembered for her series of books about Orlando the Marmalade Cat....

.

Afer initially living at Newlyn

Newlyn

Newlyn is a town and fishing port in southwest Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.Newlyn forms a conurbation with the neighbouring town of Penzance and is part of Penzance civil parish...

, they moved to Paris in 1920, becoming part of an expatriate artistic community that included Juan Gris

Juan Gris

José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...

, Fernard Leger, Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...

, Man Ray

Man Ray

Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...

, Nancy Cunard

Nancy Cunard

Nancy Clara Cunard was a writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class but strongly rejected her family's values, devoting much of her life to fighting racism and fascism...

 and Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

. They returned briefly to London in 1926, before moving in 1929 to Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

.

In 1937, Morris and Haines founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing

East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing

The East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing was an art learning environment established by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines in East Anglia in 1937. It was run on very idiosyncratic lines based upon the "free rein" approach that was then current in French academies...

 at Dedham

Dedham, Essex

Dedham is a village within the borough of Colchester in northeast Essex, England, situated on the River Stour and on the border of Essex and Suffolk...

. When it burned down in 1939, the school was relocated to Benton End, a mansion near Hadleigh. Operating on a live-in basis that mingled artistic development with a social circle, its pupils included Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud

Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...

, Bettina Shaw-Lawrence

Bettina Shaw-Lawrence

Bettina Shaw-Lawrence also known as Betty Shaw-Lawrence, is an English 20th century figurative artist born in 1921. Though she studied painting and drawing under Fernand Léger, Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, was mainly self-taught...

, David Kentish

David Kentish

David Kentish was a British artist and actor producer.-Early life and training:David Kentish was educated at Bryanston School and trained as an artist under Sir Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, together with Lucian Freud and Bettina...

, Maggi Hambling

Maggi Hambling

Maggi Hambling CBE is an English painter and sculptor. Perhaps her best known public works are a memorial to Oscar Wilde in central London and Scallop, a 4 metre high steel sculpture of two interlocking scallop shells on Aldeburgh beach dedicated to Benjamin Britten...

, David Carr, Joan Warburton and Glyn Morgan.

The school closed when Haines died in 1978, though Morris continued to live at Benton End until his death in 1984.

Portraits of Lett-Haines

A sandstone portrait sculpture exists of Lett-Haines by John Skeaping

John Skeaping

John Rattenbury Skeaping, RA was an English sculptor and equine painter.Born in South Woodford, Essex, Skeaping studied at Goldsmith's College, London, and later at the Royal Academy. He was the first husband of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, with whom he exhibited during the 1920s...

 dating from 1933. This work came about after the breakup of Skeaping's marriage to Barbara Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth

Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art in Britain.-Life and work:Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January 1903 in Wakefield,...

, when Skeaping joined the artists' colony at the house of Cedric Morris

Cedric Morris

Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea but worked mainly in East Anglia...

 in Higham

Higham

Higham is the name of several places in England:*Higham, Derbyshire*Higham, Kent*Higham, Lancashire*Higham, South Yorkshire*Higham, Babergh, Suffolk*Higham, Forest Heath, Suffolk*Cold Higham, Northamptonshire*Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire...

, Suffolk.