Desmond Morris: biography, creativity, career, personal life

Desmond John Morris is an English zoologist-ethologist and surrealist artist, member of the Linnaeus society and a popular author in the field of human sociobiology. He became famous thanks to his 1967 book The Naked Monkey and his television programs such as The Zoo of Time.

Biography

Desmond Morris was born on January 24, 1928 in Purton, county Wiltshire. His mother is Marjorie Morris (née Hunt), his father is children's writer Harry Morris. In 1933, Maurice moved to Swindon, where Desmond showed talent in the field of science and writing. He was educated at Downtsey School and at a boarding school in Wiltshire.

In 1946, he joined the British Army for 2 years of national service, acting as lecturer in fine arts at the Chiselton Military College. After being discharged in 1948, he held his first solo exhibition of paintings at the Swindon Center for the Arts and began his education as a zoologist at the University of Birmingham.

In 1950, he held a surreal art exhibition with Juan Maro in the gallery of London. In subsequent years, held other exhibitions. In the same 1950, Desmond Morris wrote the scripts and shot two surreal films based on them “Flower of Time” and “Butterfly and Pin”.

In 1951, he began his doctoral studies at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, in the direction of "animal behavior." In 1954 he received a Ph.D. degree for his work on the reproductive behavior of the ten-headed stickleback.

Career

After receiving his doctorate, Desmond Morris remained at Oxford to study the reproductive behavior of birds. In 1956, he moved to London as head of the television and cinema department of Granada TV at the London Zoological Society and studied the ability of monkeys to take pictures. His job responsibilities also included creating programs for film and television on animal behavior and other zoological topics.

Until 1959, Morris participated in the weekly Granada TV program "Zoo Time", for which scripts were written and 500 episodes were shot on them. In addition, 100 episodes of the show "Life in the Animal World" were produced for BBC 2.

In 1957, Desmond organized an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, where paintings and drawings by ordinary chimpanzees were presented. In 1958, he organized the Lost Image exhibition, which compared the images of babies, people, and monkeys at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

In 1959, he left Zoo Time and became the curator of the London Zoological Mammal Society. In 1964, he read the Royal Institute’s Christmas lecture on animal behavior. In 1967, he spent a year as executive director of the London Institute of Contemporary Art.

One of Morris's most famous books is The Naked Monkey: A Zoologist's Study on Human Animals, published in 1967. Almost immediately, she became a bestseller in the scientific world, and the proceeds from her sale allowed Morrim to move to Malta in 1968 to write her sequel, as well as do other books.

In 1973, Desmond returned to Oxford and began work under the guidance of ethologist Nico Tinbergen. From 1973 to 1981, Morris was a research fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. In 1978, Morris was elected vice president of Oxford United FC. In 1979, he starred in the TV series The Human Race for the Thames TV Channel. In 1982 he released such films as "A Man Looks to Japan" and "Animal Show". In 1986, several other series were shot.

In 2015, the National Life Stories conducted an oral historical interview with Desmond Morris for the Science and Religion collection at the British Library.

Bibliographic work

Over his life, Desmond Morris has written many popular science books and scientific papers:

• "Biology of art" (1983);

• “Big Cats” (1965) - Bodley Head’s edition of the series “Books with Drawings on Natural History”, which tells about the habits of “big cats”;

• "Mammals: A Guide to Living Species" (1965) - a complete list of all mammalian genera, with the exception of rodents and bats, with additional information on specific species;

• "Naked monkey: a zoological study of human animals" (1967) - a look at the animalistic qualities of humanity and their similarities with other monkeys, in 2011 was included in the list of 100 best and most influential non-fiction books written in English since 1923, according to Time magazine versions

• "People and Snakes" (1968) - a study of various complex relationships between people and snakes, written in collaboration with Ramona Morris;

• The Human Zoo (1969) is a continuation of The Naked Monkey, which analyzes human behavior in large modern societies and their similarities to captive animals;

• "Intimate behavior" (1971) - a study of the human side of intimate behavior, a study of how natural selection formed a person’s physical contact;

• "Human Observation: A Field Guide to Human Behavior" (1978) discussing the topic of "Connecting Signs";

• "Gestures, their origin and distribution" (1978);

• "Animal Days" (1979) - an autobiographical book;

• The Football Tribe (1981);

• "Pocket Guide to Observing People" (1982);

• Inrok (1983);

• Body Observation - A Field Guide to Human Species (1985) - a collection of several hundred photographs analyzing the human body;

• "Catwatching & Cat Lore" (1986) - study of cats;

• "Dogwatching" (1986) - sketch "man’s best friend";

• "Horsewatching" (1989) - "Why does a horse laugh and everything else that you ever wanted to know";

• "Observation of animals" (1990);

• "Children's observation" (1991);

• Bodytalk (1994);

• "Human Animal" (1994) - a book and a BBC documentary series on it;

• "The Human Sexes" (1997) - the BBC Discovery documentary series;

• "The Cat World and the Cat Encyclopedia" (1997);

• With the naked eye (2001);

• "Dogs: The Ultimate Dictionary of Over 1, 000 Dog Breeds" (2001);

• "Peoplewatching: Desmond Morris's Guide to Body Language" (2002);

• "Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body" (2004);

• "Linguaggio muto (dumb language)" (2004);

• "The nature of happiness" (2004);

• "Watching" (2006);

• "Naked man: a study of the male body" (2008);

• “A child: a portrait of the first two years of life” (2008);

• Planet of the Ape (2009) - co-authored with Steve Parker;

• Owl (2009), Monkey (2013), Leopard (2014), Bison (2015) and Cats in Art (2017) - part of the Reaktion series of animal books;

• "Life of the Surrealists" (2018).

Cinematographic and television creativity

Over the years of his career, Desmond Morris has released, directed, and played roles in several feature films and documentaries, television series, and television shows:

• "Zootime" (1956-1967) - weekly television show;

• The Human Race (1982);

• "Animal Show" (1987-1989);

• "The contract on animals" (1989);

• "Animal Country" (1991-1996);

• The Human Animal (1994);

• "The sex of man" (1997).