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Allie uses her mouth to manipulate the sponge she chose as an implement for this painting. Great Ape Trust photo. |
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Ape-created art became something of a sensation a half-century ago after a chimpanzee named Congo produced about 400 drawings and paintings over a three-year period beginning in 1956. Zoologist, ethologist, author and painter Desmond Morris, who was interested in exploring chimpanzees’ ability to create order and symmetry, wrote that “with the drawings, [he] was able to prove that the chimpanzee brain is capable of creating abstract patterns that are under visual control.”
“To put it simply,” he wrote, “the position of one line influenced the position of the next line and so on, until the drawing was considered (by the ape) to be finished.”
Congo’s work created a sensation at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Among those acquiring some of the paintings were Pablo Picasso, surrealist Joan Miro and private collectors, such as Prince Philip.
Other paintings by apes during that time were produced by the American chimpanzee Betsy, who specialized in finger painting; an orangutan named Alexander who lived at the London Zoo; and a female gorilla named Sophie who lived at the Rotterdam Zoo in Holland and who, despite her great size, created brush and crayon works that were remarkably delicate.
In 2005, three paintings by Congo fetched more than $25,000 when they were auctioned at Bonhams in London alongside works by impressionist master Renoir and pop art provocateur Andy Warhol. The works by the better-known human artists didn’t sell.
In the late 1990s, the paintings of Koko and Michael, a pair of lowland gorillas, were displayed in an exhibit at San Francisco’s Terrain Gallery that was touted as expressions of life “as seen through the eyes, emotions and imaginations of two lowland gorillas.” |
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