JOHN MELVILLE 53 OIL BRITISH SURREALIST ARTIST PAINTING

 BIOGRAPHY  JOHN MELVILLE

In his authoritative book, Surrealism in Britain, Michel Remy has rightly pointed out that John Melville was, along with the likes of Paul Nash, John Banting, Edward Wadsworth, Tristram Hillier and John Selby Bigge, among the 'harbingers of surrealism' in Britain.

Remy, who is Professor of English Literature and Art History at the University of Nice, and regarded as the leading authority on British Surrealism, goes on to argue that Melville's painting, The Museum of Natural History of the Child, is 'one of the key paintings of British Surrealism'.

Remy explains that, along with the outstandingly talented Conroy Maddox, John Melville probably did most to develop the surrealist proposition in Britain by introducing visual distortion as a basic principle.

But Melville's development as an artist is, in many ways like surrealism itself, not a straightforward journey from A to Z. 

If placing him at the core of British surrealism is essential to an understanding of his visual language, so then it is equally important to recognise Melville's journey to and beyond surrealism, to create a body of work over his lifetime that is, as the art critic Peter Davies has pointed out, 'vivid and at times visionary' and which never fails, 'to communicate an intense kind of poetry'.

'A beauty of strangeness born of unexpected meetings of word, sound, image, thing, person'

Arthur Rimbaud

Melville's son Theo has pointed out that the path that led to his father's passion for painting remains obscure. However, as Theo notes, his father, along with his brother (the writer and critic Robert Melville), were frequent visitors to London in the 1920s. It was during this time that the works of Picasso, Matisse, Beckman, Ernst, Brancusi, and the writings of O'Casey, Cocteau, O'Neill, Brecht and importantly Breton were becoming available to the avant-garde in London.

Melville was therefore witness to, and became part of, the most exciting and intense period of development within the arts in Britain since 1914. It is in this maelstrom, where enormous leaps were being taken to again confront modernity, that Melville's ideas and methods were tested and began to take shape. 

It was also, I would suggest, this grounding that imbues Melville's work with such power, and at times, immense pathos, that gave him such outstanding range and dexterity and crucially allowed him to flourish largely independently of the London art world. (Jeff Jackson)

1902 Born London on August 25th.
1913 Family move to Birmingham.
1929 Marries Lily Beatrice Samuel.
        Largely self taught, he becomes associated with the Modern Group in Birmingham.
1930 Exhibited with the Modern English Watercolour Society, St George's Gallery, London.
1932 First one-man exhibition at the Crescent Theatre, Birmingham. 
        First one-man exhibition at the Wertheim Gallery, London.
        Becomes associated with the Surrealist Group in London.
1933 Work included in Tenwties Group Exhibition at the Wertheim Gallery.
1934 Supported by the art collector Enoch Lockett, a Birmingham based customs and excise official, who paid him a monthly salary for the right to choose every so often from his works.1936 Along with Conroy Maddox he refused to take part in the highly successful International Surrealist Exhibition in London because too many of the artist whose had been included had no claim to be called surrealists.
1938 Joined the Surrealist Group when it took a new turn under the London based Belgian surrealist E L T Mesens. 
Work included in the exhibition Realism and Surrealism at Gloucester.
        Has six pictures banned from a Birmingham Group exhibition at the Birmingham City Art Gallery on the grounds that they risked being ‘detremental to public sensibility’.
1939 Work included in a surrealist exhibition at the London Gallery.
        His patron, Enoch Lockett, dies.
1940 Work included in the important Surrealist Exhibition at the Zwemmer Gallery, London.
        For the duration of the war works for the Ministry of Food in Birmingham.
1942 Along with his brother, the writer Robert Melville and the artists Conroy Maddox, Eileen Agar, Edith Rimmington, Toni del Renzio and Emmy Bridgewater, John was a signatory of the publication Arson which was seen as bold attempt to give a clear focus to Surrealists.
        Along with Maddox, Colquhoun, Agar exhibit in del Renzios 2nd surrealist exhibition. 
1945 Work included in the exhibition Four Birmingham Artists at the Birmingham City Art Gallery.1946 ‘Self Portrait’ (1943) presented to the Leicestershire Museum & Art Gallery.1949 Work included in The Birmingham Artists Committee Invitation Exhibition. (With Emmy Bridgwater, William Gear, Conroy Maddox, Oscar Mellor, Desmond Morris and others) Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Galleries and then Bilston Corporation Art Gallery. 1951 One-man exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, London.1955 Work included in an exhibition of Midland artists at the Zwemmer Gallery, London. Work included with the New English Art Club, R.B.A Galleries, London.

1971 Work included in the important Surrealist exhibition at the Hamet Gallery, London.
1974 Work included in an exhibition of West Midland artists at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
1978 Work included in the exhibition Dada and Surrealism Reviewed at the Hayward Gallery, London.
1982 Work included in the exhibition Les Enfants d’Alice, La Peinture Surrealiste 1930 - 1960 en Angleterre at the Galarie 1900-2000, Paris.
1985 Work included in the exhibition A Salute to British Surrealism, 1930 - 1950 which toured The Minories, Colchester; Blond Fine Art, London; The Ferens Hall Art Gallery, Hull.
1986 Work included in the important exhibition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Surrealist Exhibition, British Surrealism 50 Years On, at the Mayor Gallery, London.
        His painting ‘Natural History Museum of the Child’ purchased by Leeds City Art Gallery.
        Retrospective exhibition at Blond Fine Art, London.
        Work included in in the touring exhibition Surrealism in Britain.
        Work included in the exhibition Angels of Anarchy and Machines for Making Clouds at Leeds City Art Gallery.
1986 Dies in Birmingham on December 8th
1987 Memorial exhibition at Gothick Dream Fine Art.
1996 Retrospective exhibition at the Westbourne Gallery 62, London.
1999 Work included in the exhibition From The Unconscious To The Irreverent, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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