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Desmond Morris

Richard Bright

Tim Niel

The Secret Surrealist: Desmond Morris

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

04/04/2017

BBC Four - The Secret Surrealist: Desmond Morris

How noted zoologist Desmond Morris leads a double life as a painter of dreamlike images.

A look at the double life of zoologist Desmond Morris - by day a rational scientist, writer and broadcaster with a mission to explain, by night a painter of dreamlike images.

Since the 1960s, Desmond Morris has been known as a zoologist and expert on human behaviour, but the bestselling author of The Naked Ape and Manwatching has led a double life. By day, a rational scientist, writer and broadcaster with a mission to explain; by night, a painter of dreamlike images, which mystify even Morris himself. He first began painting in the surrealist style while still at school, and still does so today, at the age of 89. In his long career he has been friends with such great surrealists as Joan Miro and Henry Moore. Every night, between 10pm and 4 in the morning, while the rest of us are dreaming in our beds, Desmond Morris dreams on canvas.

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