Introduction & Sales Selection
Joan 'Maudie' Warburton
‘Come into the Garden, Maud’ showcases the work of Joan (Maudie) Warburton with over 40 drawings and paintings, created from the late 1930s to the mid-1990s. The work ranges from exquisite line-drawn portraits of, for example, her teacher Cedric Morris and her fellow student Lucian Freud, to local wartime scenes and landscapes of the East Anglian countryside and beautiful cottage gardens, including Ronald Blythe’s Bottengoms. The O’Malley Estate has lent some notable oil paintings of family life. Later in her career, Joan injected a strong sense of humour into her work: including some pastels of a ship-in-a-bottle in front of Wivenhoe, or a jungle scene of big cats in watercolour and gouache. Over the course of her career Joan had 11 solo exhibitions. In this show there will also be a display of ceramics made by Peter O’Malley, Joan’s husband. This echoes previous joint gallery shows that the couple had in London during the mid-20th century.
Hadleigh Old School - The Gallery
5 Bridge Street Hadleigh Suffolk IP7 6BY
Exhibition Opening Times
Open daily 3-19 April 2026
10am to 4pm
Mon & Tues by Appointment only
Hadleigh Old School is a multi-faceted events venue at 5 Bridge Street, Hadleigh, Suffolk IP7 6BY – with adjacent free car parking next to the Iron Bridge (B1070) crossing the River Brett into Hadleigh. This former Victorian Boys School will be transformed into an art gallery for the exhibition: the main hall has a magnificent hammer beamed ceiling, designed by architect Frederick Barnes in 1848. It ceased being a school in the late 1960s and was converted into a concert-hall for a summer music festival that ran for four decades, directed by American conductor Tom McIntoish and his wife, Miranda. Husbands Matthew Hodges (Proprietor) and Ian Grutchfield (Venue Director) reopened the venue in 2020.
Website www.hadleigholdschool.co.uk Instagram @hadleigholdschool
Co-Curator Lindsay Fulcher
Journalist & Editor
‘I acquired my first work by Joan Warburton about 20 years ago, after being seduced by too much champagne and two boisterous spaniels in an exhibition presented by Sally Hunter in west London. It was a spare, line-drawing of a seated lurcher, which Maudie made in 1939, when she was a young student. Over the years, I have gone on to collect 20+ other examples of her work including: line and ink drawings, ranging from portraits of Cedric Morris, Lucian Freud and Laurie Lee, a self-portrait, and sketches of other guests and denizens of Benton End, to flower and animal studies. There is something utterly free in these delightful early drawings which radiate the confidence of youth. From her journals, it is clear that all Maudie wanted to do when she woke up in the morning was to paint and draw – something she continued to do until the end of her life.’
Co-Curator Ian Grutchfield
Venue Director Hadleigh Old School
: ‘Most students at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing gravitated towards either Cedric Morris or Arthur Lett-Haines (known as Lett), for example Lucian Freud credited Cedric for his influence on his own portraiture and Maggi Hambling was a follower of Lett. In contrast Joan Warburton was both an artist and a plantswoman, following in the footsteps of Cedric (she called the Suffolk/Essex border “Cedric country”) but she also captured the cheeky spirit of Lett in her pictures of otherworldly scenes and creatures. It is this uniqueness and individuality that comes across in the vivid paintings on display, a life-affirming celebration of Joan’s vision of flowers, gardens and animals.’