Background
Morrocco was born in Aberdeen in 1917, the son of immigrant Italians.
Morrocco was born in Aberdeen in 1917, the son of immigrant Italians.
He studied at Gray"s School of Art between 1932 and 1938, and in France, Italy and Switzerland.
He is famous for his landscapes in Scotland and abroad, still-life, figure painting and interiors, but perhaps his best known works are his beach scenes and views of Venice. He is famous for his landscapes in Scotland and abroad, still life, figure painting and interiors, but perhaps his best known works are his beach scenes and views of Venice. The avant-garde of the twenties and thirties, in particular Braque and Picasso, had an immense influence on him for the rest of his life.
The outbreak of the Second World War saw him detained in Edinburgh Castle, as an enemy alien, but he was released and allowed to serve as a conscientious objector in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
After the war Morrocco had a brief spell teaching evening classes. From 1950 onwards Morrocco spent his professional life in Dundee, as Head of the School of Painting at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, which is now part of the University of Dundee.
He produced murals for Saint Columba"s Church in Glenrothes and for Liff Hospital in Dundee. Morrocco was a prolific painter.
He had a spectacular retirement, producing some of his most vigorous work in the period from 1982 to his death.
Even late in his life and seriously ill, he would commit himself to exhibitions of thirty or forty new works in a year. Laurie is a conservator of early panel paintings and Annalisa a designer and illustrator. Alberto died in Dundee in 1998.