arts and design

The Great British Art Tour: surreally saying something

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Is that a wine glass, or a bowl? A bone or a stem? Eggs or some strange unknown fruit? There is no wrong answer. The beauty of this surrealist artwork lies in its ambiguity; its meaning depends on the viewer’s experiences. Desmond Morris’s still life painting, The Mysterious Gift, offers a selection of unusual and strangely presented objects, whose identity is open to the interpretation of the curious viewer.

The Mysterious Gift, 1965, by Desmond Morris (H 99cm x W 70.7cm).
The Mysterious Gift, 1965, by Desmond Morris (H 99cm x W 70.7cm). Photograph: Desmond Morris/Swindon Museum and Art Gallery

Morris is a man of many talents. You may recognise him as a broadcaster, a world-renowned zoologist, or the author of the landmark book The Naked Ape. Yet Morris’ fascination with human behaviour goes even further than that; bleeding into his surrealist paintings of barren landscapes littered with biomorphic forms.

His career as a surrealist artist began in the 1950s, some 30 years after the movement was born of a fascination with theories of the unconscious mind. Surrealist artists and writers embraced the idea that art does not need to be shaped by reason, but rather something more instinctual, something unexpected, uncanny and unconventional.

Before creating The Mysterious Gift in 1965, Morris stretched the canvas back to front, in order to paint on to the raw surface of the material. This was common practice for Morris’s friend, the seminal artist Francis Bacon. Morris took his cue from Bacon here, but of his many paintings (almost 3,500), it is the only instance where he has employed this unconventional technique.

The Mysterious Gift is unique within Morris’s oeuvre, so it is fitting that he himself presented it to Swindon Museum and Art Gallery in 1965. After all, Swindon was the place where it all began – Morris moved to the town as a child, and held his first one-man exhibition at the Swindon Art Centre. He has recently celebrated his 93rd birthday, and has been known to refer to himself as the “last living surrealist”.

• You can see more art from the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery on Art UK here, and find out more on the gallery’s website.

• This series is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, which brings the nation’s art together on one digital platform and tells the stories behind the art. The website shows works by 50,000 artists from more than 3,000 venues including museums, universities and hospitals as well as thousands of public sculptures. Discover the art you own here.

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