Like his friend the late Cedric Morris, John Morley is very much part of the celebrated tradition of East Anglian painter-plantsman. His is no ordinary garden however; it contains, among many other rarities over three hundred varieties of snowdrops, as well as old daffodils, fritillaries and auriculas. His knowledge of them is encyclopaedic. It is this, combined with an indubitable mastery in conveying texture and the play of light on his subject, that renders the images so unforgetable. He returns time and time again to favourite subjects; the auricula paintings, red currants, flowerpots and, of course, snowdrops. Recently he has set himself another challenge in taking a studio apartment in Prague. Essentially, however, his aims remain the same; to render exactly the effects of light as it falls on an onion-domed baroque monastery or to capture the flute delicacy of wild fungi, which the countrypeople bring into the city in the autumn.

Morley is a painter who is true to himself and it is this integrity combined with rare technical skill which makes his paintings so beguiling and memorable.