 He also worked with the London-based arts bookshop, A. Zwemmer (commonly referred to as "Zwemmer's"), which has been variously praised by Sir Kenneth Clark who called it a "source of refreshment", by Henry Moore and by Alfred H. Barr Jr.

Zwemmer was born Desmond Anton Zwemmer in 1919 in Herne Hill, south London.His father, Anton, a Dutchman, had settled in England in 1914 and become an art bookseller, art dealer and publisher "of notable prominence", opening Zwemmer's art bookshop on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Litchfield Street, London, which "revolutionised the London art world" and, nearby, the Zwemmer Gallery which offered the British public their "first opportunity to purchase the works of Picasso and ... Dali".Desmond Zwemmer went to school in the London area and while still a schoolboy he began to help in his father's bookshop and in 1936 he manned the Zwemmer's bookstall at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London.