- Artwork Details: 29.5 x 25cm
- Edition:
- Material description: oil on board
- Credit line: © the artist
- Theme: Figurative
- Medium: Painting
- Accession number: AC 4031
The Prototype
1957
Mellor, Oscar
Oscar Mellor was born in 1921 in Manchester. He moved with his
family to Birmingham in 1939 and took a job in tank production. He
served in the RAF between 1942 and 1946, before returning to
Birmingham. He began taking art classes and met Conroy Maddox
who encouraged Mellor’s natural inclination towards Surrealism.
He was a founder member of the Birmingham Artists Committee in
1947 and exhibited alongside other members such as John
Melville and Emmy Bridgwater. In the 1950s, he moved to
Swindon, where he worked as both an artist and a publisher
establishing The Fantasy Press and publishing early works by
poets such as Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis.
Alongside Maddox, Mellor’s influences included Surrealists who
tended towards figuration, such as Max Ernst, Salvador Dali and
Paul Delvaux. Mellor never conformed to any particular style
however, stating, 'My religion is Surrealism… and I’m as lax in my
devotions as the adherents of other denominations'. In works such
as The Prototype, where a figure is placed alongside a machine in
a manner that begs comparison to Picabia, Mellor considers the
human form as a means of expression.
Greg Salter