John Melville (1902-1986)

John Melville is one of the forgotten figures of British Surrealism. He was a key member of the Birmingham Surrealists, together with his brother, the art critic Robert Melville (1905-1986), and Conroy Maddox (1912-2005). In its early years the group was distinguished by its opposition to a London-based vision of Surrealism epitomised by the English exhibitors at the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition. The Birmingham group saw this as unauthentic or even anti-Surrealist, preferring instead to build links directly with Surrealism's French heartland. However, he later cooled his stance, joining the Surrealist Group in 1938, and exhibited at the seminal Surrealism Today show at the Zwemmer Gallery in 1940.

During this period, Melville began to focus on painting portraits and still life compositions, drawing his inspiration from the environment around him. In the years following the War, the artist continued to exercise his artistic talents by developing a more modernist style of representation in his work. Melville was described by Michel Remy as one of the great "harbingers of surrealism" in his book, Surrealism in Britain.