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Educated at Hillhead High School and trained at Glasgow School of Art from 1950 - 1954. In reaction against the lack of exhibiting opportunities for newly graduated artists he co-founded the Glasgow Group in 1957 with fellow GSA graduates James Spence RSW (1929-2016) and Spence's future wife Anda Paterson RSW (1935-2022). That same year he moved to Catterline in Kincardineshire, where Joan Eardley would subsequently settle in 1958. From 1962 - 63 he was artist in residence at Hospitalfield, Arbroath and in 1965 he became a lecturer at Dundee College of Art. He was a Member of the 'Dundee Seven' a group of artists who all worked at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and who held a group exhibition in 1970. He settled in Montrose in 1965 and he became Head of Department of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 1979 resigning in 1987. Morrison in the 1960s and 1970s used to paint tenements and buildings in Glasgow but is now particularly associated with his vast transluscent landscape often focusing on Montrose and the North East of Scotland. He also painted abroad including in Iceland in 1990 and Greenland in 1991. He began to exhibit at the RSA Annual Exhibitions from 1956, he became an Associate Member of the RSA in 1973 and he became an Academician in 1992. He was Keeper of the RSA from 1992 until 2002.