Sydney Sprague Morrish (British 1836 – 1899) A Devonshire Orchard

Known as S. S. Morrish, he was born in Exeter, County Devon, England in 1836. He received his art training in London. He was a successful and versatile painter in London known for his genre, landscape and portrait paintings. Morrish exhibited at the Royal Academy, British Institution and Suffolk Street between 1852 and 1894. Circa 1878 he moved to Torquay, south of his birthplace, in the County of Devon, to accept a position of Headmaster at the art school of the Vivian Institute of Science and Art. He retired from the Vivian Institute in 18 84, but continued to paint and exhibit. An art critic in 1864 favorable compared one of Morrish’s genre paintings to those of well-known genre painter Thomas Webster, stating that it “achieves a triumph by mere fidelity to human nature, without any attempt to ‘prettify:’ he deserves high praise for conscientiousness.” Could the backdrop for this painting be the Bay of Tor?