Birmingham Surrealists
Encyclopedia
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...
, England
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...
from the 1930s to the 1950s.
The key figures were the artists 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 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....
, alongside Melville's brother, the art critic Robert Melville
Robert Melville (art critic)
Robert Melville was an English art critic and journalist.Along with the artists Conroy Maddox and John Melville , he was a key member of the Birmingham Surrealists in the 1930s and 1940s...
. Other significant members included artists Emmy Bridgewater, Oscar Mellor
Oscar Mellor
Oscar Mellor was an English surrealist artist and publisher of poetry. An associate of the Birmingham Surrealists in the 1940s, he founded the Fantasy Press in the 1950s, publishing works by poets such as Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis and Thom Gunn.Although he became best known as a publisher, he...
and the young 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:...
.
In its early years the group was distinguished by its opposition to a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
-based vision of surrealism epitomized by the English exhibitors at the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition
London International Surrealist Exhibition
The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London, England.The exhibition was organised by:* Hugh Sykes Davies* David Gascoyne* Humphrey Jennings* Rupert Lee* Diana Brinton Lee...
, that the Birmingham group saw as inauthentic or even anti-surrealist, preferring instead to build links directly with surrealism's French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
heartland.
As 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...
approached, however, and the London-based British Surrealist Group
British Surrealist Group
The British Surrealist Group was involved in the organisation of the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936.The London Bulletin was published by the Surrealist Group in England, according to the June 1940 edition , edited by E. L. T...
fell under the influence of European exiles such as E. L. T. Mesens and Toni del Renzio
Toni del Renzio
Antonino Romanov del Renzio dei Rossi di Castellone e Venosa , an artist and writer of Italian and Russian parentage, was leader of the British Surrealist Group for a period....
, the ideological approaches of the two groups converged and they formed increasingly co-operative and overlapping parts of a wider international surrealist movement.
The Birmingham Surrealists would meet in the Kardomah Café in New Street
New Street, Birmingham
New Street is a street in central Birmingham, England . It is one of the city's principal thoroughfares and shopping streets. Named after it is Birmingham New Street Station, although that does not have an entrance on New Street except through the Pallasades Shopping Centre.-History:New Street is...
, the Trocadero pub
Trocadero, Birmingham
The Trocadero, 17 Temple Street, Birmingham, England, currently a pub, is a dazzling demonstration of the use of coloured glazed tile and terracotta in the post-Victorian era of architecture....
in Temple Street, or in later years in Maddox's house in Balsall Heath
Balsall Heath
Balsall Heath is a working class, inner-city area of Birmingham, England. It is home to a diverse cultural mix of people and the location of the Balti Triangle.-History:...
, which would also often play host to more eclectic gatherings including figures such as jazz musician George Melly
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
, poets Henry Reed and Walter Allen
Walter Allen
Walter Ernest Allen was an English literary critic and novelist. He is best known for his classic study The English Novel: a Short Critical History ....
and writers Stuart Gilbert
Stuart Gilbert
Stuart Gilbert was an English literary scholar and translator. Among his translations into English are works by André Malraux, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Georges Simenon, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre...
and Henry Green
Henry Green
Henry Green was the nom de plume of Henry Vincent Yorke , an English author best remembered for the novel Loving, which was featured by Time in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.- Biography :Green was born near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, into an educated family...
.
Origins
The existence of a distinctive Birmingham group of surrealist artists dates from the meeting of Conroy MaddoxConroy Maddox
Conroy Maddox , was an English surrealist painter, collagist, writer and lecturer; and a key figure in the Birmingham Surrealist movement....
and 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....
in 1935, after an exchange of letters in the Birmingham Post
Birmingham Post
The Birmingham Post newspaper was originally published under the name Daily Post in Birmingham, England, in 1857 by John Frederick Feeney. It was the largest selling broadsheet in the West Midlands, though it faced little if any competition in this category. It changed to tabloid size in 2008...
about what they saw as the excessively conventional art scene in the city. Melville had been one of the "harbingers of surrealism" in Britain, producing a Surrealist Nude by 1930 and being described as a surrealist by critic R. H. Wilenski in 1932. Maddox had become a convert to surrealism after discovering one of Wilenski's books in Birmingham Central Library
Birmingham Central Library
Birmingham Central Library is the main public library in Birmingham, England, and the largest non-national library in Europe. It is managed by Birmingham City Council...
in 1935.
Maddox and John Melville had an obvious link as artists practicing in the surrealist genre, but Melville was eclectic in his tastes and lacked Maddox's unwavering commitment to the surrealist cause. As a result Maddox also formed a strong attachment to John's brother Robert Melville
Robert Melville (art critic)
Robert Melville was an English art critic and journalist.Along with the artists Conroy Maddox and John Melville , he was a key member of the Birmingham Surrealists in the 1930s and 1940s...
, who was later to become a widely published critic and whose understanding of surrealism's theoretical basis was to provide much of the group's intellectual underpinning.
Surrealism was supposed to be more than a style of painting and Maddox and the Melvilles courted controversy to bring their disruptive aesthetic and political influence to bear across the city - using the resources of the relatively forward-looking Birmingham Group to sidestep the established Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
consensus that still reigned at 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 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...
, in favour of more radical and subversive artistic movements. John Melville had six of his paintings banned from an exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1938 as being "detremental (sic) to public sensibility", and in 1939 Robert Melville challenged Professor Thomas Bodkin
Thomas Bodkin
Professor Thomas Patrick Bodkin was an Irish lawyer, art historian, art collector and curator.Bodkin was Director of the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin from 1927 to 1935 and founding Director of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham from 1935 until 1952, where he acquired the...
of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts
Barber Institute of Fine Arts
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts is an art gallery and concert hall in Birmingham, England. It is situated in purpose-built premises on the campus of the University of Birmingham....
in public debate, arguing that "Picasso's work invalidates conventional ways of thinking, for it is the work of a free man, he has enlarged the idea of reality".
The London International Surrealist Exhibition
1936 saw surrealism first come to widespread public and media attention in England as a result of the London International Surrealist ExhibitionLondon International Surrealist Exhibition
The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London, England.The exhibition was organised by:* Hugh Sykes Davies* David Gascoyne* Humphrey Jennings* Rupert Lee* Diana Brinton Lee...
.
One of the exhibition's key organizers - Roland Penrose
Roland Penrose
Sir Roland Algernon Penrose CBE was an English artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of the surrealists in the United Kingdom.- Biography :...
- had seen Maddox and John Melville's work at a gallery in Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
, and met Maddox at Penrose's house in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
to talk about featuring in the exhibition. The Birmingham artists were highly critical of the selection for the exhibition of artists they saw as "overnight surrealists", such as Graham Sutherland
Graham Sutherland
Graham Vivien Sutherland OM was an English artist.-Early life:He was born in Streatham, attending Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton. He was then educated at Epsom College, Surrey before going up to Goldsmiths, University of London...
, Cecil Collins
Cecil Collins
Cecil Collins was an English artist originally associated with the Surrealist movement.He was born in Plymouth and worked first as a mechanic at a firm based in Devonport. From 1924 to 1927 he attended Plymouth School of Art...
, Robert Medley
Robert Medley
Charles Robert Owen Medley CBE, RA, , always known as Robert Medley, was an English painter who worked in both abstract and figurative styles, and a theatre designer...
and John Minton
John Minton
John Minton may refer to:* John D. Minton, Jr., Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court* John Minton , artist and illustrator* Big John Studd , wrestler...
, however, and refused to participate. Instead of submitting artworks the group submitted a letter of protest, which was displayed for a period at the exhibition.
In the words of E. L. T. Mesens:
Despite their refusal to exhibit, Maddox and the Melvilles attended the exhibition and made contact there with leading continental surrealists including André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
and Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
.
The exhibition was also attended by Birmingham-born artist Emmy Bridgwater
Emmy Bridgwater
Emma Frith Bridgwater , known as Emmy Bridgwater, was an English artist and poet associated with the Surrealist movement....
, whose work was transformed by the experience and who made contact with the group through John Melville on her return to Birmingham.
Continental links
Possibly as a result of the 1936 snub, no Birmingham artists were invited to exhibit at the major London surrealist exhibitions of 1937 and 1938 - the group instead continuing to exhibit with the Birmingham Group in the Midlands, with Maddox and Robert Melville focusing on building relations with what they saw as the more authentic surrealists of continental Europe.Despite his limited French, Maddox travelled to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
repeatedly between 1936 and 1939, frequenting surrealist meetings at Le Dome Cafe
Le Dome Cafe
Le Dôme Café or Café du Dôme is a restaurant in Montparnasse, Paris. From the beginning of the 1900s, it was renowned as an intellectual gathering place. It was widely known as "the Anglo-American café."...
and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
Académie de la Grande Chaumière
The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France. The school was founded in 1902 by the Swiss Martha Stettler , who refused to teach the strict academic rules of painting of the École des Beaux-Arts. It opened the way to the "Art Indépendant"...
and forming long-lasting relationships with Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
and Georges Hugnet
Georges Hugnet
Georges Hugnet , was a French poet, writer, artist, art historian, graphic artist, and film director. He was a figure in the Dada movement and Surrealism.-References:...
, whose influences were quickly to become apparent in his work.
Maddox's continental contacts were to greatly improve relations between the surrealists of Birmingham and London after mid-1938, when the London Gallery - the nerve centre of London surrealism - fell under the directorship of Mesens, who had been involved with continental surrealism since its inception in 1924. Maddox was invited to the October 1938 meeting of the British Surrealist Group
British Surrealist Group
The British Surrealist Group was involved in the organisation of the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936.The London Bulletin was published by the Surrealist Group in England, according to the June 1940 edition , edited by E. L. T...
at the personal insistence of Breton, and Mesens invited both Maddox and John Melville to exhibit in the next major London Gallery exhibition - 1939's Living Art in England. Maddox and the Melvilles officially joined the group in 1938, with Bridgewater joining in 1940.
All four were subsequently frequent contributors to the Mesens-published London Bulletin and in November 1939 Maddox's work was exhibited alongside that of Breton, Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, René Magritte
René Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
and Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
at the Guggenheim Jeune Gallery.
World War II
The major Birmingham surrealists were relatively unaffected by the onset of war: Maddox and the Melvilles all having reserved occupationReserved occupation
A reserved occupation is an occupation considered important enough to a country that those serving in such occupations are exempt - in fact forbidden - from military service....
s in Birmingham's wartime industries, while Bridgwater escaped call-up as a woman.
In contrast, surrealist activity in London virtually ceased with the closure of the London Gallery in 1939 and the London Bulletin in 1940, and the Birmingham group expended considerable energy in attempts to reinvigorate wider English surrealist activity. Maddox played an organizing role in 1940s Surrealism Today exhibition at London's Zwemmer Gallery and designed its highly provocative window display with John Banting
John Banting
John Banting was an English artist and writer.Born in London and educated at Emanuel School, Banting was initially attracted to vorticism and associated with the Bloomsbury Group, before becoming interested in surrealism in Paris in the 1930s...
, while Robert Melville played a key role in the conception of Arson: An Ardent Review - Toni del Renzio
Toni del Renzio
Antonino Romanov del Renzio dei Rossi di Castellone e Venosa , an artist and writer of Italian and Russian parentage, was leader of the British Surrealist Group for a period....
's attempt ‘to provoke authentic collective Surrealist activity’ that featured all of the major Birmingham figures among its contributors.
Despite a heavy Birmingham presence also at del Renzio's November 1942 Surrealism exhibition, Maddox and Robert Melville split from del Renzio over their associations with the New Apocalyptics
New Apocalyptics
The New Apocalyptics were a poetry grouping in the UK in the 1940s, taking their name from the anthology The New Apocalypse , which was edited by J. F. Hendry and Henry Treece...
movement and its Birmingham-based pioneer Henry Treece
Henry Treece
Henry Treece was a British poet and writer, who worked also as a teacher, and editor. He is perhaps best remembered now as a historical novelist, particularly as a children's historical novelist, although he also wrote some adult historical novels.-Life and work:Treece was born in Wednesbury,...
. Partly as a result of this the Birmingham group sided strongly and decisively with Mesens when he in turn split acrimoniously with del Renzio over the leadership of the Surrealist Group in England in 1944.
Post War
Oscar Mellor
Oscar Mellor was an English surrealist artist and publisher of poetry. An associate of the Birmingham Surrealists in the 1940s, he founded the Fantasy Press in the 1950s, publishing works by poets such as Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis and Thom Gunn.Although he became best known as a publisher, he...
taking up painting more seriously on returning from service in the RAF and meeting Maddox in 1946, 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:...
(already producing surrealist artworks as a teenager in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
) enrolling at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
in 1948 and quickly discovering what he termed "Conroy Maddox's surrealist court".
The profile of Birmingham artists within wider the wider surrealist movement remained high, with Maddox and Bridgewater featuring among only six English artists selected by Breton for the last major international surrealist group exhibition, the Exposition Internationale du Surrealisme at the Galerie Maeght in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1947 and Bridgwater's paintings and poetry appearing in major surrealist journals in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
New local exhibition opportunities also opened up with 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....
(co-founded by Mellor) explicitly promoting challenging art forms at its annual Invitation Exhibition.
The late 1940s also saw a continuation of the group's disruptive surrealist activities across the city, with Morris's unexplained abandonment of a giant elephant skull on a Broad Street
Broad Street, Birmingham
Broad Street is a major thoroughfare and popular nightspot in Birmingham City Centre, United Kingdom. Traditionally, Broad Street was considered to be outside Birmingham City Centre, but as the city centre expanded with the removal of the Inner Ring Road, Broad Street has been incorporated into...
provoking a perplexed response from the police and press alike, and the city council strongly resisting Maddox's repeated attempts to stage a series of violent scenes involving nuns in city centre shop windows.
The focus of surrealist activity in the period was Maddox's house overlooking Calthorpe Park in Balsall Heath
Balsall Heath
Balsall Heath is a working class, inner-city area of Birmingham, England. It is home to a diverse cultural mix of people and the location of the Balti Triangle.-History:...
. Maddox had long harbored ambitions to own a surrealist house - suggesting spaces filled entirely with bricks and rooms furnished with life-sized chess pieces as possible decorative schemes. When a property was finally found in Autumn 1946 a less ambitious, though still eccentric, design featuring a giant loom
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...
, mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
s and wallpaper hand-printed on an adapted washing mangle
Mangle (machine)
A mangle or wringer is a mechanical laundry aid consisting of two rollers in a sturdy frame, connected by cogs and, in its home version, powered by a hand crank or electrically...
was adopted.
Weekend parties drew in a wide variety of unconventional attendees from well outside the core surrealist circle. Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
journalist Tim Hilton, who grew up nearby, recalled:
The group and its associates also continued the surrealist tradition of "being in the world" by meeting in cafes and pubs around the city, including the Kardomah café in New Street (also a haunt of the young Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
), the Trocadero pub
Trocadero, Birmingham
The Trocadero, 17 Temple Street, Birmingham, England, currently a pub, is a dazzling demonstration of the use of coloured glazed tile and terracotta in the post-Victorian era of architecture....
nearby on Temple Street, and the International Centre - a meeting place of immigrants and refugees - in Suffolk Street.
Breakup
In July 1948 a Short Manifesto from The Surrealist Group in Birmingham was published and signed by twelve Birmingham artists, including Maddox and Mellor but missing major figures such as Bridgewater, Morris and the Melvilles. Its call for the formation of an "active surrealist group" to reject the "patriotic myths, official pedagogy, the debris of moral rationing which constitutes much of the art, poetry and philosophy of our time" was not without irony though: English surrealism was increasingly looking like a spent force and the manifesto had a far from galvanising effect on local artists.As the 1950s wore on the group drifted apart. Bridgewater moved to Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
in 1951 to look care for her ill mother and disabled sister, ceasing artistic activity for almost two decades. Mellor and Morris both moved 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...
to continue in education. John Melville remained in Birmingham, though he withdrew from public exhibition after the failure of his 1951 exhibition at London's Hannover Gallery and was increasingly attracted away from surrealism to forms such as still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
and portraiture
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
.
Maddox himself, frustrated at his inability to reinvigorate English Surrealism from Birmingham, moved to London in 1955, where he continued to advocate the surrealist cause throughout the rest of the 20th century. In 1978, Maddox made contact with the surrealist revival on the West Coast of the U.S., and members of that movement visited London to show at Maddox's Surrealism Unlimited exhibit. The Arsenal anthology (1989), was dedicated to Maddox.