Robert Medley

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Robert Medley
Born
Charles Robert Owen Medley

(1905-12-19)19 December 1905
London, England
Died20 October 1994(1994-10-20) (aged 88)
London
Education
Known forPainting, teaching, design work

Charles Robert Owen Medley

RA, (19 December 1905 – 20 October 1994), also known as Robert Medley, was an English artist who painted in both abstract and figurative styles, and who also worked as theatre designer. He held several teaching positions in both London and Rome.[1]

Biography

Early life

Medley was born in London, one of six children to Charles Medley, a highly successful copyright lawyer who was friends with many writers of the day. He was educated at

and then completed his art training by spending two years, from 1926 to 1928, in Paris.

At Gresham's School Medley was the friend of

heterosexual and therefore did not understand Auden's erotic intentions toward him until they spent a single weekend together after both had left school. Until he was seduced at 19, he recalled later, "I was still under the illusion that I was entirely heterosexual."[2]

1920s & 1930s

In Paris in 1926 Medley met a dancer,

Surrealists
organized by the AIA.

World War Two

At the beginning of the

Second World War Medley served as an Air Raid Precautions warden until he was offered a three-month commission by the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, to go to France to record troop landings for the British Expeditionary Force. Medley's appointment was blocked by MI5 who considered him to be "closely associated with subversive Communist doctrine". Instead WAAC offered Medley a contract to record air raid precautions in the north-east of England and he spent an enjoyable two months based in Newcastle upon Tyne doing just that.[4] Earlier he had, like many other artists, put his name forward to undertake camouflage work for the war effort and when his WAAC contract was completed, Medley was sent to Cairo as a camouflage officer and spent the rest of the war there.[3][5]

Later life

Returning from the war, Medley and Donne lived together in London where Medley taught at the Chelsea Art School, now part of the

Chelsea College of Art and Design, from 1945 to 1949. One of his 'Cyclist' series of paintings, composed between 1950 and 1952, won a prize at the Festival of Britain 60 Paintings for 51 exhibition.[3][6] Medley was a visiting lecturer at the Slade and returned there full-time in 1958 as Head of the department of Theatre Design, a post he held until 1966. The Cast Room at the Slade inspired Medley to create his 'Antique Room' series of paintings.[7] In the late 1950s Medley painted a series of industrial landscapes in the Gravesend area.[3]

In the 1960s Medley turned to abstraction, but in later years returned to figurative painting. These last paintings are the most widely respected of his works. A retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the

Royal Academy. A centenary tribute at James Hyman Fine Art in 2005 was accompanied by a catalogue with essays about Medley's work. Medley was also an important supporter of emerging out gay artists studying at the Slade who included Mario Dubsky and Derek Jarman
.

Work in public collections

Work in private galleries

References

  1. ^ Emmanuel Cooper. "Artist biography; Robert Medley". Tate. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  2. .
  3. ^ a b c d Mel Gooding (28 October 1994). "Obituary: Robert Medley". The Independent. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  4. ^ Imperial War Museum. "War artists archive; R Medley". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  5. ^ Barkas, Geoffrey; Barkas, Natalie (1952). The Camouflage Story (from Aintree to Alamein). Cassell. Page 141.
  6. ^ Tate (August 2004). "Display caption; Summer Eclogue No 1: Cyclists (1950)". Tate. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  7. ^ Tate (September 2004). "Display caption;The Antique Room at the Slade:Niobe and Hermes (1952)". Tate. Retrieved 12 February 2015.

Further reading

  • Chilvers, Ian; Glaves-Smith, John (2009). "Medley, Robert" in A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
  • Robert Medley, Answers to Unanswerable Questions (1973; lecture)
  • Robert Medley, Drawn from the Life: A Memoir (1983)
  • (Unsigned), "Robert Medley", Daily Telegraph, 24 October 1994, p25

External links