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]
Life and career
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]
The Only Blonde in the World: Pauline Boty, 1938–1966. London: AM Publications, 1998. ISBN0-9509896-2-2; with Sue Watling.
Chemical Traces: Photography and Conceptual Art, 1968–1998. Kingston upon Hull: Kingston upon Hull City Museums & Art Galleries, 1998; ISBN0-904490-19-X.
No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–1987: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collection. London: Hayward Publishing, 2007; ISBN978-1-85332-265-5.