Robert Medley

Robert Medley attended Gresham’s School in Holt, Norfolk. Here he made friends with the later author W. H. Auden (1907-1973) and inspired him to write poetry. After their mutual school days, they both had a homosexual relationship.

After a short spell at the Byam Shaw School of Art, Medley studied art at the Royal Academy School from 1924. He then transferred again, this time to the Slade School of Fine Art and completed his studies with a two-year stay (1926-1928) in Paris. There he met dancer Rupert Doone (1903-1966) and he lived with him for the rest of his life.

In the 1930s Medley worked in various avant-garde styles and had his first solo exhibition in 1931. In the same year he also started teaching at the Chelsea Art School. In the years that followed, he did mostly design work for the theater. In 1932 he founded the Group Theatre together with his partner Doone and became its artistic director. Both invited Auden to write plays for the group. In 1936, Medley exhibited at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London and one year later he founded the Artists’ International Association (AIA) promoting socialist and avant-garde art.

During World War II, Medley was initially deployed as an air raid warden. A contract as a war painter in France was blocked by the secret service MI5 because of his alleged closeness to communism. He then served in England before going to Egypt as a camouflage officer. After the war he lived in London and taught for several years at the Chelsea Art School (now part of Chelsea College of Art and Design). Medley was also a visiting lecturer at the Slade School of Art and later became head of the Department of Theater Design. As an artist, he turned to abstraction in the 1960s, but later returned to figurative painting. The latter paintings received special attention. In 1966 he became chairman of the faculty of painting at the British School in Rome. In 1982 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 1985 was elected as a member of the Royal Academy.

Cyclists against a Blue Background, one of the paintings in his Summer Eclogue No. 1 series created between 1950 and 1952, won a prize at the Festival of Britain “60 Paintings for 51”. Cyclists from 1950 (oil on canvas, 129.5 x 160 cm), also from this series, was purchased by the Tate Gallery in 1992. In Helsinki in 1952 he also showed a painting titled Cyclists, which is likely to be this work.