Entry to a Landscape

Details

Desmond Morris (b. 1928)
Entry to a Landscape
signed with initials and dated 'M./47' (lower left), signed with a monogram, inscribed and dated again '1947/7/M' (on the backboard), signed with a monogram, inscribed and dated again 'Entry to a Landscape/oil-varnished/Xmas 46-47/M' (on the backboard)
oil on board
20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.7 cm.)

Literature

P. Oakes, The Secret Surrealist, Oxford, 1987, pp. 18, 53, pl. 4, illustrated. M. Remy, The Surrealist World of Desmond Morris, London, 1991, pp. 26, 27, 197, no. 1947.7, illustrated.
S. Levy, Desmond Morris: 50 Years of Surrealism, London, 1997, pp. 70-1, 119, illustrated.
S. Levy, Desmond Morris: Naked Surrealism, Antwerp, 1999, pp. 70 illustrated, 71, 119.
M. Remy, Surrealism in Britain, 1999, Hampshire, p. 322, illustrated. S. Levy, Desmond Morris: Analytical Catalogue Raisonné 1944-2000, Antwerp, 2001, pp. 96-8, no. 1947/17, illustrated.

Exhibited

Swindon, Public Library, Desmond Morris, January 1948, no. 13. Swindon, Museum and Art Gallery, Desmond Morris, Paintings 1946 to 1976, November - December 1976, no. 2. London, Mayor Gallery, Desmond Morris, September - October 1987, no. 1. Chichester, Festival Exhibition, The Tudor Room of the Bishop's Palace, Farm, Field and Fantasy: Visions of the English Countryside from the 18th Century to the Present Day, July 1989, no. 51.
Stoke-on-Trent, City Museum and Art Gallery, Desmond Morris: Fifty Years of Surrealism, June - July 1996, no. 7.
Nottingham, Woolerton Hall, Desmond Morris: Fifty Years of Surrealism, September - November 1996, no. 12.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

This landmark work that marks the inception of Desmond Morris's 'biomorphic' style of painting, which was to become the artist's lifelong preoccupation and the genesis for over one thousand works. It depicts a point of 'entry' into not only one particular landscape, but also an innovative vision of the world and life. Painted by a teenage Desmond Morris, who had just lived through the carnage and austerity of wartime Britain, it signifies an escape towards the inner world of the imagination. The dark, oppressive rocks are bedecked with moribund, dissected internal organs, whilst the world glimpsed through the aperture is animated, liberated and sunlit. Although Morris has insisted that his 'biomorphs' are not biological illustrations, they reveal an undeniable correlation with the numerous forms of life that Morris observed as a child and then studied as a scientist. Whilst never having replicated animals or plants, he 'attempted to evolve (his) own world of biomorphic shapes, influenced by but not directly related to the flora and fauna of our planet'. As a child he illicitly found a way into the local mortuary, where soldiers who had been killed in the war were embalmed and, quite literally, pieced together. 'I can remember the images to this day although it is more than half a century ago. It shook me rigid. Yet, I was intrigued by the internal organs of the human body that I had never seen before. They were so beautiful with wonderful structures and extraordinary shapes and colours.' Through his paintings Morris found a route to a concealed, personal world. 'I slipped through this crack in the rocks and there I was, suddenly surrounded by a whole array of bizarre inhabitants.'

S.L.

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