Dr Desmond Morris Talks to the Friends

 We were very fortunate last week to have a talk given by our Patron, Dr Desmond Morris, who was present at the Launch of the Friends of 6 July 1993. I have been very keen to invite him to talk to us for some time, but when he was living in Oxford, it seemed a long way to ask him to travel; he's now living in Ireland, but we are now able to invite people into our living rooms via Zoom, so distance is no problem.

Desmond ranged from the beginnings of the Morris's involvement in Swindon and then he reminisced about his time in Swindon from 1933-51 with some wonderful tales which are mostly captured on video here:

 https://youtu.be/CpDtPd-bgpE 

 However due to relief that I'd let the record 84 Zoom participants into the talk, I didn't manage to record the first part of the talk where Desmond traced the ancestral route to Swindon as follows:

After being injured in the Napoleonic war, James Morris, originally from the Welsh borders, didn’t make it home, but stopped off in Swindon where he remained and opened a bookshop in Wood Street. His son, William Morris, Desmond’s great grandfather thought it was unfair that ordinary people didn’t have access to newspapers because they were so expensive, he used to go to London, bring back old newspapers and rent them out to people. At that time, there was stamp duty on news items, whereas fiction, like Charles Dickens publications didn’t attract it. William discovered that if news publications were produced monthly, there was no stamp duty on them. On 6 February 1854, William Morris produced the first monthly newspaper in the country for 1d. Desmond held up a copy of the paper, the front page of which advertised Morse’s Herbal Ointment which cured many maladies. This was produced by Levi Lapper Morse, you can still buy the jars the ointment was sold in today online.

The newspapers were originally sold from the bookshop before moving to larger premises at 100 Victoria Road, where they remained until the offices closed recently and the Swindon Advertiser newspaper production was moved to Richmond House, Hindle Way, SN3 3RB.

The talk was fascinating in many respects, the funniest part was when Desmond Morris described  going out with Diana Dors and trying to remove the copious amounts of lipstick which ended up smeared over his face. We have 3 of Desmond's surrealist paintings in the Swindon Collection of 20th Century art, 'Girl Selling Flowers' seen below was painted when Desmond was 18, and depicts Diana Dors and those amazing lips, peroxide blond hair and huge eyebrows:

This painting entitled 'The Mystery Gift' came into the Collection in 1965

This painting, 'The Incident' was a Christmas present to the Friends the Christmas before last in 2019

 Graham Carter wrote this lovely piece inspired by Desmond's talk:

 https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/19104828.graham-carter-keeping-active-mind-inspired-dr-desmond-morris/

It was certainly an evening to remember, and judging by the number of emails thanking Desmond for the talk, I think many others felt the same.

Desmond's Day in the Guardian today

 There was a lovely piece in today's Guardian's Culture section reminding us that while we are missing being able to visit art galleries during this third lock down, the Guardian are doing what they can to bring art from collections around the country into our homes. Today was the turn of Desmond Morris's painting 'The Mysterious Gift' presented to Swindon Museum and Art Gallery in 1965, Katie Ackrill, engagement officer wrote the lovely article which can be found in full by clicking on the link below: 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jan/27/the-great-british-art-tour-swindon-desmond-morris-mysterious-gift

Excellent publicity for Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, and of course our Patron, Desmond Morris.

A reminder about the 3 works we have of Desmond's work we have in the collection can be found here:

http://friendsofsmag.blogspot.com/2020/01/friends-january-social.html

Above The Mysterious Gift 1965, and below 'Girl Selling Flowers', reputedly a painting of Morris's one time girlfriend, Diana Dors painted in 1946 when according to my calculations he was 18!!

and here's a recollection of collecting our latest work which Desmond Morris gave us as a Christmas present in 2019:

http://friendsofsmag.blogspot.com/2020/01/collecting-desmond-morrisss-picture.html

Friends' January Social

To mark the opening of the exhibition, Pop and Prosperity:1960s British Art from the Swindon Collection, we held an opening night, and also took the opportunity to introduce two new part time outreach workers at the museum and unveil a new painting we had been given by our Patron, Desmond Morris.
We started the evening with an opening of the exhibition by Katie Ackrill who has been appointed Art on Tour Project Engagement Officer at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.

 Art on Tour is a project to advertise our Collections more widely, currently at STEAM Museum and also the Civic Offices in Euclid St.

 Mags Parker, seen in the picture above near the wall, also spoke about her new role as Education Officer at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. On a recent visit to New College, she asked how many of the students studying art had been to the Museum, out of a group of approximately 15 students, 2 had visited the gallery.

 I took a few photos of the assembled Friends, it was a very popular evening, with about 80 present.

 After Katie and Mags introduced themselves and how they saw their roles, the big event of the evening for me, was to unveil the painting we had been given by Desmond Morris, the choosing of the picture is written about in the previous blog post. The painting had been very well wrapped by Rona Marsden, who runs Rona's Gallery where Desmond's work was being shown, but was finally revealed. Erik Burnett-Godfree kindly agreed to talk about Desmond Morris and the painting, and a bit about why we had chosen it.

I love the painting and think people were very pleased with our choice.

 There was then time to chat and look at the Glyn Uzzel exhibition in the smaller part of the gallery

We now have three paintings by Desmond Morris, from his early period, Girl Selling Flowers, 1948, currently in the Civic Offices as part of the Art on Tour project

 and Mysterious Gift, 1965 which is in the current exhibition

Collecting Desmond Morris's Picture from Oxford

Desmond Morris famous zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology, is known for his 1967 book The Naked Ape, and for his television programmes such as Zoo Time. His Wikipedia entry mentions that he was born in Purton, his family moved into Swindon when he was a child and his grandfather, William Morris founded the Evening Advertiser. What the Wikipedia entry does not say is that Desmond Morris has been Patron of the Friends ever since their inception 26 years ago! When he received a copy of the latest magazine, he was very pleased when he saw the image of 'Girl Selling Flowers' on the front cover. This painting, a great favourite, was painted in 1948 when Desmond was 18.
Desmond emailed me to say that he would like to give the Friends a Christmas present. We could go and choose a painting of our choice from Rona's Gallery in Oxford. I contacted Rona Marsden, the gallery owner, and in early January, three of us traveled to Oxford on the bus, met Rona and had a look round the gallery. I took photographs to record what was a very exciting morning.
Here's the gallery from the pavement:

and in a bit closer:

I've taken photos of the paintings on the walls to give an idea of the choice we had to make

Here are Tim Carroll and Erik Burnett-Godfree discussing the paintings, and how to make the choice

These paintings were brought out of the window

And here is Rona showing us a copy of one of Desmond's books

More chatting

Three paintings that were in the window, were turned round for us to look at

It's interesting looking back at the process we went through in order to make our final choice

I was keen on this one, and if I had gone on my own, might have chosen this one, not properly represented here because Rona's Gallery is a pop up shop, and was a Russell and Bromley shoe shop, the fixtures and fittings, including the lighting were intended for showing shoes to their best advantage, so the white spots seen on the painting are spotlights.

These two were strong contenders at one part of the process

While waiting for a decision about which painting to choose, I took a couple more photos

I imagine the small shelves were put on the wall for displaying shoes

And we have made our choice, Rona is showing us the title of the painting.

and here's a lovely picture of Rona with our painting, with a lot of reflection from the lights!

I noticed there was a mirror which might give us an interesting photo

and here is a close up of our new Desmond Morris painting which we love. As before, the white spots are reflections on the glass

I finally took a photo of Rona filling in the paperwork for the painting, she then wrapped it beautifully and it was not opened again until it was shown to the Friends attending a Private View on the 21st of January.

We would like to extend a big thank you to Desmond Morris for this kind gift for the Swindon Collection, and belatedly wish him a happy 92nd birthday.
As Desmond noted, we now have an early, middle and late Morris in the Collection.