David Alan Mellor

David Alan Mellor is a British curator, professor and writer.

Life and Career

David Mellor — as he was called before he wanted to avoid confusion with the politician of the same name — studied art at Sussex University under Quentin Bell. When Asa Briggs, also a professor there at the time, received the archive of Mass-Observation from Tom Hopkinson, he gave Mellor the job of sorting it.

Exhibitions curated by Mellor include Paradise Lost: The New Romantic Imagination in Britain (Barbican, 1987); The Sixties (1993); and Co-Optic & Documentary Photography Group (Brighton Photo Biennial, 2014). As a professor of art at Sussex University, his students included Jeremy Deller. In 2005, Mellor won the Royal Photographic Society's J. Dudley Johnston Award. In 2015 Mellor won The Society's Education Award.

Books by Mellor

• Cecil Beaton. London: Jonathan Cape, 1994; ISBN 0-224-04122-3; coedited with Philippe Garner
• Arthur Tress: Centric 52: Requiem for a Paperweight, Long Beach: California State University, University Art Museum, 1994; ISBN 0-936270-33-0
• David Hiscock. London: Zelda Cheatle, 1995. ISBN 0-9518371-9-2
• Sixties London: The Photographs of Robert Whitaker 1965–70 Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1996.
• The Only Blonde in the World: Pauline Boty, 1938-1966 London: AM Publications, 1998. ISBN 0-9509896-2-2; with Sue Watling.
• Chemical Traces: Photography and Conceptual Art, 1968–1998, Kingston upon Hull: Kingston upon Hull City Museums & Art Galleries, 1998; ISBN 0-904490-19-X.
• The Barry Joule Archive: Works on Paper Attributed to Francis Bacon, Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2000; ISBN 1-873654-84-7.
• The Sixties: Britain and France, 1962–1973: The Utopian Years. London: Philip Wilson, 2001; ISBN 0-85667-467-2.
• Tracing Light. Maidstone: Photoworks, 2001; ISBN 0-9517427-8-7; with Garry Fabian Miller.
• The Art of Robyn Denny. London: Black Dog, 2002; ISBN 1-901033-33-3.
• Interpreting Lucian Freud. London: Tate, 2002; ISBN 1-85437-442-7.
• Van Gogh vu par Bacon. Arles: Actes sud, 2002; ISBN 2-7427-3840-1; Vincent van Gogh as seen by Francis Bacon, edited by Mellor and Yolande Clergue (French)
• Liliane Lijn: Works 1959-80 Warwick: Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, 2005; ISBN 0-902683-75-6
• No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–1987: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collection. London: Hayward Publishing, 2007; ISBN 978-1-85332-265-5.