Dorothy Mead


Dorothy Mead was a British painter.

Biography

Mead was born in London, England, and adopted at three months old by a family in Walthamstow. Her mother had a florists shop.
She first met David Bomberg when he was teaching at the South east Essex School of Art at Dagenham School of Art in 1944. She followed him when he moved to the City Literary Institute in London and then to the Borough Polytechnic where she studied under Bomberg from 1945 to 1951. Mead was a founder member of the Borough Group in 1946 together with other pupils of Bomberg including Cliff Holden.
From 1956 until 1959, Mead was a mature student at the Slade School of Art. Here she met the artist and teacher Andrew Forge. She had a major influence on students such as Patrick Procktor and Mario Dubsky and was the first woman president of the student annual exhibiting society, Young Contemporaries, in 1959. The previous year, the Slade awarded her the Figure Painting Prize, and the Steer Prize. In 1959 she was asked to leave the Slade, in spite of her award-winning work, because she refused to sit the course on perspective. She believed - with Bomberg - that the stylistic approach was invalid. Her thesis, explaining her view was not accepted by the principal, William Coldstream.
In the Arts Council England series of touring exhibitions, Six Young Painters, Mead exhibited in 1964 with other artists including Peter Blake, William Crozier, David Hockney, Bridget Riley and Euan Uglow. Mead joined the London Group of artists in 1960. The New Statesman, the left-wing magazine singled her out, when critic David Sylvester remarked she "tends to affirm the supremacy of light, as women's painting often does." Holden, her partner said "Dorothy sticks to her principals, but like myself and Bomberg was an outsider".
In 1964, Mead arrived as a lecturer at Goldsmith's College "like a breath of fresh air" according to pupil and painter Barry Martin. She swept aside the old gentlemanly bohemian and class pretensions that she thought "stubborn preconceptions". Her family saw her "living on the edge" of reality all the time. She worked in a garret studio in Ladbroke Grove, yet went up to Berkeley Square to buy paints. She was described by Dennis Creffield, artist and fellow student of Bomberg, as having an "abundant personality...a great love of art...stylish in appearance." Her daring, precarious act of existential expressionism can be seen in The Acrobat, an exhibition of 1970 at Borough Road Gallery.
Mead was President of the London Group from 1971–73, succeeding Andrew Forge, a progressive art historian with whom she was long associated, and also had an affair with. Mead spent two spells teaching at Morley College: between 1963-5 she taught 'Painting', and from 1973-75 she taught 'Drawing & Painting' and 'Improvisation from the Model' in the Morley Summer Painting School. Mead was also a part-time lecturer at Chelsea College of Art in London between 1962 and 1964. She was a feminist with a principled individualism - she once remarked that if she changed her name to George, she stood a greater chance of selling her work!
The collection of the Tate Gallery and other art museums include work by Mead.
Mead's paintings were shown at the 1991 exhibition Bomberg and his Legacy, held in Eastbourne at the Towner Art Gallery.
In 2005, a retrospective exhibition was held thirty years after her death. Despite the esteem she had earned from fellow artists, it was her first ever solo exhibition.
Following her death on 12 June 1975, many of Meads paintings were stolen from a secure warehouse in Essex. Valerie Long, her sister is the holder of Mead's works. The estate is represented by Waterhouse & Dodd.

A List of Works

WorkRepository--
Light on the seaGovernment Art Collection--
Still life with AubergineGovernment Art Collection--
Standing figureUCL Art Museum--
Study after the AntiqueUCL Art museum--
Still life with Green PepperUCL Art museum--
FlowersArts Council Collection--
PortraitOil on Canvas1962The Sarah Rose Collection, London South Bank University
Vase of FlowersLondon South Bank Collection--
Vase of Flowers London South Bank Collection--
Figure Composition after GoyaLondon South Bank Collection--
Self-portraitLondon South Bank Collection--
Standing Female FigureLondon South Bank Collection--
MeetingLondon South Bank Collection--
Two FiguresLondon South Bank Collection--
Model RestingLondon South Bank Collection--
Self PortraitLondon South Bank Collection--
HandsLondon South Bank Collection--
Reclining NudeLondon South Bank Collection--
Reclining Nude London South Bank Collection--
LandscapeLondon South Bank Collection--
AcrobatLondon South Bank Collection--
TransvestiteLondon South Bank Collection--
ChessboardOil on Canvas1958Tate
Industrial Landscape, EveningBritish Academy--
Seascape, BrightonBritish Academy--
TombsOil on board1947British Academy
The Pianist IIBritish Academy--
Reclining FigureSarah Rose Collection, London South Bank University.--