Oscar Mellor (1921-2005)

Oscar Mellor (1921-2005) was born and educated in Manchester. The artist's earliest painting dates from 1936, when he was still a teenager, and already revealed strong Surrealist tendencies. After service in the RAF during World War II, he joined the Surrealist circle that had gathered around Conroy Maddox in Birmingham and, by the late 1940's, was fully engaged in Surrealist activities. Mellor was one of the founder members of the Birmingham Artists Committee in 1947 - an avant-garde organisation set up in opposition to the conservative Royal Birmingham Society of Artists - and exhibited in their annual group shows between 1947-1951 alongside artists such as John Melville (1902-1986), Desmond Morris (1928 - ), and Emmy Bridgwater (1906-1999).