"I have always been stimulated by landscapes and certain kinds of architecture, particularly Romanesque and British Arts and Craft. But I am not a copyist and consider myself to be an Abstract/Concrete artist. Geometric form and the increasing use of colour as structure animate my reliefs."
Derek Morris was born in 1940 in Birmingham, England, and grew up in an intensely creative family. His father was a craftsman/sculptor, his mother an embroiderer and his sister a silversmith turned jeweler. Derek studied Fine Art at Newcastle upon Tyne University where Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton taught the Basic Course which inspired a number of students to later become abstract artists. He graduated in 1963 with a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art. Later, he became a member of staff there for two years and then moved to Norwich, England to take up a post at the Art School.
Derek Morris developed a Degree level Course at Norwich Art School and it became a first-choice college during the 70s and 80s. In the late 80s, he set up a ceramics facility for the sculpture school which inspired him to work in Ceramics for ten years.
"My sculptural language was developed strongly during these years, and I retired from teaching in 1990 in order to pursue my career as a sculptor."
In 1999, Morris became President of the Royal Society of Sculptors, a prestigious body founded in 1904 and based in Kensington, London. He was in post for five years and considerably modernized the Society, encouraging younger members to join. He remains a member and has been actively engaged until the present.
Morris has also been active in the art community in Norwich and is currently a Trustee of the Norfolk Contemporary Art Society which promotes new art and artists in the region. He has worked steadily through these years and exhibited in London and East Anglia.
"I remain deeply enthusiastic about both sculpture and painting and gain sustenance from both in these troubled times."
