David Alan Mellor (1948–2023) was a British curator, professor and writer. [1] He was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's J. Dudley Johnston Award and Education Award. [2]
David Mellor — as he was called before he began using his full name professionally to avoid confusion with the politician of the same name — grew up in Leicester as the child of a lorry-driver and a hairdresser; he attended school intermittently due to his severe asthma. As an undergraduate he studied art at Sussex University under Quentin Bell. During this time Asa Briggs, then Vice-Chancellor of the University, received the archive of Mass-Observation from Tom Harrisson. For his first job Mellor catalogued this archive, and he then published and curated exhibitions about the substantial collection of pre-war photographs of working-class life contained within it. [1]
Exhibitions curated by Mellor include Paradise Lost: The New Romantic Imagination in Britain ( Barbican Centre, 1987); [3] The Sixties (1993); [1] and Co-Optic & Documentary Photography Group ( Brighton Photo Biennial, 2014). [4] As a professor of art at Sussex University, his students included Jeremy Deller. [1]
He died in September 2023. [5] [6]
David Alan Mellor (1948–2023) was a British curator, professor and writer. [1] He was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's J. Dudley Johnston Award and Education Award. [2]
David Mellor — as he was called before he began using his full name professionally to avoid confusion with the politician of the same name — grew up in Leicester as the child of a lorry-driver and a hairdresser; he attended school intermittently due to his severe asthma. As an undergraduate he studied art at Sussex University under Quentin Bell. During this time Asa Briggs, then Vice-Chancellor of the University, received the archive of Mass-Observation from Tom Harrisson. For his first job Mellor catalogued this archive, and he then published and curated exhibitions about the substantial collection of pre-war photographs of working-class life contained within it. [1]
Exhibitions curated by Mellor include Paradise Lost: The New Romantic Imagination in Britain ( Barbican Centre, 1987); [3] The Sixties (1993); [1] and Co-Optic & Documentary Photography Group ( Brighton Photo Biennial, 2014). [4] As a professor of art at Sussex University, his students included Jeremy Deller. [1]
He died in September 2023. [5] [6]