Oscar Mellor was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 surrealist

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 and publisher of poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

. An associate of the Birmingham Surrealists

Birmingham Surrealists

The Birmingham Surrealists were an informal grouping of artists and intellectuals associated with the Surrealist movement in art, based in Birmingham, England from the 1930s to the 1950s....

 in the 1940s, he founded the Fantasy Press

Fantasy Press (poetry)

The Fantasy Press was an English publisher of poetry between 1951 and 1959.The company was established by Oscar Mellor in Swinford, Oxfordshire primarily to finance his work as a surrealist artist, but gained a high profile through discovering a series of poets who became major figures of The...

 in the 1950s, publishing works by poets such as Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin

Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...

, Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis

Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...

 and Thom Gunn

Thom Gunn

Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...

.

Although he became best known as a publisher, he saw himself primarily as an artist whose business activities existed to support his painting.

Biography

Oscar Mellor was born and educated in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, moving to Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 with his family in 1939 and serving in the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. He had been painting surrealist

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 watercolours from the age of 15, but took up painting more seriously on returning from the war in 1946, studying part-time at the Birmingham School of Art

Birmingham School of Art

The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, its Grade I listed building on...

 and the Ruskin School and becoming an associate of Conroy Maddox

Conroy Maddox

Conroy Maddox , was an English surrealist painter, collagist, writer and lecturer; and a key figure in the Birmingham Surrealist movement....

 and the Birmingham Surrealists

Birmingham Surrealists

The Birmingham Surrealists were an informal grouping of artists and intellectuals associated with the Surrealist movement in art, based in Birmingham, England from the 1930s to the 1950s....

.

In 1947 he was a founder member of the Birmingham Artists Committee

Birmingham Artists Committee

The Birmingham Artists Committee was an English artist collective that organised exhibitions of painting and sculpture in Birmingham between 1947 and 1952....

 - which existed to organise exhibitions of avant-garde artists ignored by the conservative Royal Birmingham Society of Artists

Royal Birmingham Society of Artists

The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA is a learned society of artists and an art gallery based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, England. it is both a registered charity. and a registered company The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA is a learned society of artists and an...

 - exhibiting with them alongside artists such as John Melville

John Melville

John Melville was an English surrealist artist, described by Michel Remy in his book Surrealism in Britain as one of the "harbingers of surrealism" in Great Britain....

, William Gear

William Gear

William Gear was a painter, born on 2 August 1915 in Methil in the south-east of Fife, Scotland. Born into a mining family, he studied at Edinburgh College of Art before travelling to Paris to study with Fernand Léger....

, Emmy Bridgwater

Emmy Bridgwater

Emma Frith Bridgwater , known as Emmy Bridgwater, was an English artist and poet associated with the Surrealist movement....

 and Desmond Morris

Desmond Morris

Desmond John Morris, born 24 January 1928 in Purton, north Wiltshire, is a British zoologist and ethologist, as well as a popular anthropologist. He is also known as a painter, television presenter and popular author.-Life:...

 between 1947 and 1951.

Moving to Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 in 1948 to continue his studies at The Ruskin, he briefly went into business with Conroy Maddox before establishing himself as a publisher and photographer in Swinford, Oxfordshire

Swinford, Oxfordshire

Swinford in the English county of Oxfordshire is a small settlement in the civil parish of Cumnor. It lies on the road between Eynsham and Farmoor on the south bank of the River Thames near Swinford Toll Bridge. In 1974 it was transferred from Berkshire....

, founding the Fantasy Press

Fantasy Press (poetry)

The Fantasy Press was an English publisher of poetry between 1951 and 1959.The company was established by Oscar Mellor in Swinford, Oxfordshire primarily to finance his work as a surrealist artist, but gained a high profile through discovering a series of poets who became major figures of The...

 in 1951 and producing regular photographic work for Oxford Playhouse.

From 1969 until 1973 he was a lecturer in photography at Exeter College of Art, after which he returned full-time to painting until shortly before his death in 2005.