Desmond Morris | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Morris in 1969 | |
| Born | Desmond John Morris (1928-01-24)24 January 1928 (age 97) Purton, England |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation(s) | Zoologist and ethologist |
| Known for | The Naked Ape (1967) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Zoology |
| Thesis | The reproductive behaviour of the ten-spined stickleback (1954) |
| Doctoral advisor | Niko Tinbergen |
Desmond John MorrisFLShon. caus. (born 24 January 1928) is an Englishzoologist,ethologist andsurrealist painter, as well as a popular author in humansociobiology. He is known for his 1967 bookThe Naked Ape, and for his television programmes such asZoo Time.
Morris was born inPurton,Wiltshire, to Marjorie (née Hunt) and children's fiction author Harry Morris. In 1933, the Morrises moved toSwindon where Desmond developed an interest innatural history and writing. He was educated atDauntsey's School, a boarding school in Wiltshire.[1]
In 1946, Morris joined theBritish Army for two years ofnational service, becoming a lecturer infine arts at theChiseldon Army College inWiltshire. After being demobilised in 1948, he held his first one-man show of his own paintings at theSwindon Arts Centre, and studiedzoology at theUniversity of Birmingham. In 1950 he held a surrealist art exhibition withJoan Miró at the London Gallery. He held many other exhibitions in later years.[1] Also in 1950, Desmond Morris wrote and directed two surrealist films,Time Flower andThe Butterfly and the Pin.[2] In 1951 he began a doctorate at theDepartment of Zoology, University of Oxford, inanimal behaviour.[1] In 1954, he earned aDoctor of Philosophy for his work on the reproductive behaviour of theten-spined stickleback.[3]
Morris stayed at Oxford, researching the reproductive behaviour of birds. In 1956 he moved to London as Head of theGranada TV and Film Unit for theZoological Society of London, and studied the picture-making abilities of apes.[1] The work included creating programmes for film and television on animal behaviour and other zoology topics. He hosted Granada TV's weeklyZoo Time programme until 1959, before returning shortly after in the 60s,[4] scripting and hosting 500 programmes, and 100 episodes of the showLife in the Animal World forBBC2.[1] In 1957 he organised an exhibition at theInstitute of Contemporary Arts in London, showing paintings and drawings composed bycommon chimpanzees. In 1958 he co-organised an exhibition,The Lost Image, which compared pictures by infants, human adults, and apes, at theRoyal Festival Hall in London. In 1959 he leftZoo Time to become theZoological Society's Curator of Mammals.[1] He returned to the programme in the 1960s.[5] In 1964, he delivered theRoyal Institution Christmas Lecture onAnimal Behaviour. In 1967 he spent a year as executive director of the LondonInstitute of Contemporary Arts.[1]
Morris's books includeThe Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal,[6] published in 1967. The book sold well enough for Morris to move toMalta in 1968 to write a sequel and other books. In 1973 he returned to Oxford to work for the ethologistNiko Tinbergen.[7] From 1973 to 1981, Morris was a Research Fellow atWolfson College, Oxford.[8] In 1979 he undertook a television series forThames TV,The Human Race, followed in 1982 byMan Watching in Japan,The Animals Road Show in 1986 and then several other series.[1] Morris wrote and presented the BBC documentaryThe Human Animal and its accompanying book in 1994.National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C1672/16) with Morris, in 2015, for its Science and Religion collection held by theBritish Library.[9]
Morris is a Fellowhonoris causa of theLinnean Society of London.[10]
Parallel to his academic and media career, Morris continued to create paintings in a Surrealist style. His art career spanned 70 years of his long life, though for decades his paintings were not widely known. But gradually they featured in exhibitions and were bought by public galleries, including the Tate in London. In 2017 his paintings were the subject of a BBC Four documentaryThe Secret Surrealist. Morris continued to paint Surrealist artworks quite prolifically into his nineties.[11]
Morris's father suffered lung damage inWorld War I, and died when Morris was 14. He was not allowed to go to the funeral and said later; "It was the beginning of a lifelong hatred of the establishment. The church, the government and the military were all on my hate list and have remained there ever since."[12] His grandfather William Morris, an enthusiasticVictorian naturalist and founder of the Swindon local newspaper,[1] greatly influenced him during his time living in Swindon.
In July 1952, Morris married Ramona Baulch; they had one son, Jason.[1] In 1978 Morris was elected vice-chairman ofOxford United.[3] While a director of the club, he designed its ox-head badge based on aMinoan-style bull's head, which remains in use to this day.[13]
Morris lived in the same house inNorth Oxford as the 19th-century lexicographerJames Murray who worked on theOxford English Dictionary.[14] He has exhibited at the Taurus Gallery inNorth Parade, Oxford, close to where he lived.[15] He is the patron of the Friends ofSwindon Museum and Art Gallery and gave a talk to launch the charity in 1993.[16] Since the death of his wife in 2018 he has lived with his son and family in Ireland.[17]
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| Year | Review article | Work(s) reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | "CATS".The New York Review of Books.41 (18):16–17. 3 November 1994. | Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall (1994).The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture. Simon and Schuster.ISBN 978-0671799656. |
Some of Morris's theories have been criticised as untestable. For instance, geneticistAdam Rutherford writes that Morris commits "the scientific sin of the'just-so' story – speculation that sounds appealing but cannot be tested or is devoid of evidence".[20]
Morris is also criticised for suggesting thatgender roles have an evolutionary rather than a purely cultural background.[14]
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