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The Cedric Morris Lectures: Discovering Cedric Morris with Philip Mould OBE

This is the first in a series of four lectures celebrating the exhibition Cedric Morris: Artist Plantsman at the Museum.

Philip Mould, art dealer, broadcaster, and writer will give a personal account of how he ‘discovered’ Cedric Morris and the reasons for his attachment to him as a painter and naturalist. Since his relationship with Cedric began three years ago while making a television programme on Lucian Freud, as he will demonstrate, Cedric Morris is an artist who has exerted a posthumous influence on the events that have led up these two concurrent exhibitions: Cedric Morris Artist Plantsman and Cedric Morris Beyond the Garden Wall.

The talk will be followed by a Q&A with Philip Mould.

This talk is part of a series of talks about Cedric Morris:

Tuesday 8th May
The Cedric Morris Lectures: Irises, Gardening and Friends

Tuesday 5th June
The Cedric Morris Lectures: Reflections and Reminiscences

Tuesday 19th June
The Cedric Morris Lectures: Plant: Exploring the botanical world through art

Speaker Biographies

  • Philip Mould OBE

    Philip Mould OBE

    Philip Mould is an art dealer who, through his books, television work and numerous articles, has become one of the best known and celebrated personalities in the art world. He is recognised on an international scale for the popular BBC 1 programme 'Fake or Fortune?' (now in its seventh season), which he helped formulate in 2011. In collaboration with journalist and broadcaster Fiona Bruce, Philip’s contribution to 'Fake or Fortune?' has helped to achieve viewing figures of up to five million thereby making it the most-watched arts programme in the UK in addition to being viewed by people across forty countries worldwide.

    Along with running his own fine art gallery for the past thirty years, now situated on London’s fashionable Pall Mall, Philip has gained acclaim for his numerous and significant art historical discoveries. Due to this specialist talent for unearthing long-lost treasures and forgotten masterpieces Philip’s expertise is in high demand from international collectors, independent academics and academic institutions as well as many museums both here in the UK and across the Atlantic.

    In addition to his career as an art dealer Philip is a leading literary authority on the culture of art detection having written two influential books on the subject; 'Sleepers: In Search of Lost Old Masters' (published in paperback as The Trail of Lot 163 by 4th Estate, London) and 'Sleuth: The Amazing Quest for Lost Art Treasures' (sold in the USA under the title The Art Detective).

    Philip is currently travelling the world filming the upcoming series of 'Fake or Fortune?' which includes investigations into significant undiscovered works by leading twentieth-century artists. As well as his work on Fake or Fortune? Philip is also a regular specialist on Antiques Roadshow.

    From 1988 to early 2011 Philip held the position of official art adviser to the House of Commons and to the House of Lords for which he received the Order of the British Empire. He is President of Kids in Museums, President and formerly Chairman of Plantlife (the international wild plant conservation charity), an ex-trustee of the English Heritage Foundation and a patron of Fight for Sight. In 2013 he received an honorary doctorate by the University of East Anglia where he completed his honours degree in art history in 1981.

Image: Poppies, 1926, Sir Cedric Morris, © Philip Mould & Company, Cedric Morris Estate