The Birmingham Artists Committee was an English artist collective that organised exhibitions of painting and sculpture in Birmingham between 1947 and 1952.
15-488: The committee was organised by the art critic Robert Melville and artists including Oscar Mellor and Trevor Denning to break the stranglehold of the conservative Royal Birmingham Society of Artists on the exhibition of work by living artists in the city. Its exhibitions were an important post-war outlet for the Birmingham Surrealists , showing the work of Conroy Maddox , John Melville , Emmy Bridgwater and
30-745: A book on the Ned Kelly paintings by Sidney Nolan . Melville was the art critic of the New Statesman from 1954 to 1976 and wrote monthly pieces for the Architectural Review between 1950 and 1977. When he retired from the Architectural Review Hugh Casson described him as "unchallenged as the most serious (and I don't mean solemn) and illuminating art critic in the country". In 1947 Melville moved to London in 1947. He worked first for E. L. T. Mesens ' London Gallery, and later
45-691: A particularly strong interest in Picasso (then little-known in England) that led to an important friendship with Hugh Willoughby, a contemporary collector of Picasso's work based in Hove . During the late 1930s Melville wrote a book on Picasso based on Willoughby's collection that was published in 1939 as Picasso: Master of the Phantom . As Melville described it: "without my knowledge my wife sent my little book to Oxford University Press. Curiously enough they accepted it". The book
60-653: The Hanover Gallery . While at the Hanover Gallery, he met Arthur Jeffress , who co-owned the gallery with Erica Brausen. In 1954 Robert and Arthur decided to leave the Hanover Gallery and open a new gallery – Arthur Jeffress (Pictures). They jointly ran the successful gallery until Arthur's death in 1961; after which Robert continued to run the gallery until 1974, during which time it featured works by Pauline Boty, Richard Hamilton and David Hockney. Melville then worked for Marlborough Fine Art, London, and then he worked at
75-755: The Harborne area of Birmingham in 1913 and after his secondary schooling Melville spent most of the 1920s in clerical jobs with a variety of industrial companies. In 1928 he married and settled in Sparkhill . Melville's brother John had shown early talent as a painter and from the late 1920s the Melvilles both developed an interest in the emerging modernist movements in continental Europe, becoming regular patrons of Zwemmer 's art bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road . Meeting fellow Birmingham Surrealist Conroy Maddox in 1935
90-679: The Marlborough New London Gallery as assistant to the Manager, Tony Reichardt. Shortly before his death Melville accompanied Sidney Nolan to Australia where they visited all the areas that Nolan had painted. In 1928, Melville married Lilian May Lewis Smith, daughter of William Smith, who worked in the rare books department of W. H. Smith . Their daughter Roberta married the British blues musician Alexis Korner . Horizon (British magazine) Horizon: A Review of Literature and Art
105-467: The best critical and creative writing we can find in wartime England and maintaining the continuity of the present with the past. The magazine had a small circulation of around 9,500, but an impressive list of contributors, and it made a significant impact on the arts during and just after the war. Connolly issued an all-Irish number in 1941, an all-Swiss number in 1946 and a U. S. number in October 1947. There
120-525: The high moments in the long history of British eccentricity". Waugh was less positive, telling Connolly that he heard "an ugly accent—RAF pansy" from the magazine. He twice satirized Connolly and Horizon , as Ambrose Silk and Ivory Tower in Put Out More Flags , and Everard Spruce and Survival in Sword of Honour . Spruce, like Connolly, was the editor of a literary review, liked good food and parties, and
135-501: The three set out to challenge Birmingham's conservative artistic establishment. Although not a practising artist himself, Robert Melville had a thorough understanding of surrealism 's theoretical background and was to provide much of the group's intellectual underpinning, culminating in an open debate with Professor Thomas Bodkin of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in 1939 that received widespread press coverage. Robert developed
150-650: The young Desmond Morris . Other notable artists represented included CoBrA member William Gear and the sculptor Gordon Herickx . Although there was no organisational link, The Birmingham Artists Committee was acknowledged as a catalyst by the artists who founded the Ikon Gallery in 1964. This article related to an art display, art museum or gallery in the United Kingdom is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Robert Melville (art critic) Robert Melville (31 December 1905 – March 1986)
165-507: Was a literary magazine published in London, UK, between December 1939 and January 1950. Published every four weeks, it was edited by Cyril Connolly , who made it into a platform for a wide range of distinguished and emerging writers. It had a print run of 120 issues or 20 volumes. Connolly founded Horizon after T. S. Eliot ended The Criterion in January 1939, with Peter Watson as its financial backer and de facto art editor. Connolly
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#1733086211983180-422: Was also a French issue and one comprising The Loved One , the novel by Evelyn Waugh . Paul Fussell praised Horizon as "one of the most civilized and civilizing of periodicals ... with material of almost unbelievable excellence". He described it as "Around 10,000 pages of exquisite poetry and prose and art reproductions, produced and read in the midst of the most discouraging and terrible destruction ... one of
195-505: Was an English art critic and journalist . Along with the artists Conroy Maddox and John Melville (his brother), he was a key member of the Birmingham Surrealists in the 1930s and 1940s. An early biographer of Picasso , he later become the art correspondent of the New Statesman and the Architectural Review . Melville was born in Tottenham , London , in 1905, the second son of an asphalt contractor's foreman. His family moved to
210-455: Was editor throughout its publication and Stephen Spender was an uncredited associate editor until early 1941. Connolly described the magazine's goal during World War II as encouraging the young writers-at-arms who seem to find the need to write more irresistible as the War progresses, keeping them in touch with their French and American contemporaries—in short, continuing our policy of publishing
225-708: Was to make Melville's reputation as a critic. He was appointed art critic of the Birmingham Evening Despatch in 1940 and had a series of articles published in The Listener in 1943 and 1944. In 1950 Melville wrote an article on Francis Bacon in Cyril Connolly 's magazine Horizon that was to have lasting influence on Bacon's critical reputation, placing him firmly in the European tradition of Kafka , Dalí , Buñuel and Picasso . In 1964 Melville wrote
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