Born 24 January 1928, He is a British zoologist and ethologist. In 1954, he was awarded a D.Phil. from Oxford University for his thesis on the Reproductive Behaviour of the Ten-spined Stickleback, supervised by Nobel Laureate Niko Tinbergen. He was employed by the Zoological Society of London as Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo, eventually leaving in 1966 in frustration about stagnation at the zoo. This could be the impetis that pushed him to finish his first real sucsess as an author in 1967. He has published over a dozen books but the three that spoke to me as a teenager still resonate w/me today (and i will not discuss the lenth, breath and gulf that exist between the two) as few author's have.
The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal (1967)
The book depicts human behavior as largely evolved to meet the challenges of prehistoric life as a hunter-gatherer (see nature versus nurture). The book was serialized in the Daily Mirror newspaper, and has been translated into 23 languages.
The Human Zoo (1969)examines the nature of civilized society, especially in the cities. Morris compares the human inhabitants of a city to the animal inhabitants of a zoo.
The Human Animal: A Personal View of the Human Species is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by Desmond Morris, first transmitted in the UK from 27 July 1994. The series was produced in associaion with Discovery Channel.
Many of the ppl that do know of him and his books do not know he is a a surrealist artist. He is considered to have contributed significantly to the British Surrealist movement. He had his first solo show in 1948 (before graduate school), and has shown regularly since then.
In 1957, he curated an exhibition of chimpanzee paintings and drawings at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, including paintings by a young chimpanzee called Congo.Congo (1954–1964) was a chimpanzee who learned how to draw and paint. Zoologist and surrealist painter Desmond Morris first observed his abilities when the chimp was offered a pencil and paper at two years of age. By the age of four, Congo had made 400 drawings and paintings. His style has been described as "lyrical abstract impressionism".
I compleatly understand the darwinesk cover of "The Naked Ape" now and the human and chimp photo's of earlier issues of the title. For me they never struck the right cord as i took more "we havn't come as fare as we think" take on his book. This would be more like it... more like the fall of our ego in thinking that man is such a lofty creature.
(Painting by Joseph Desire Court 1797-1865)
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