English Surrealist Group

Founded in 1936, the Birmingham Surrealists were an informal grouping of artists and intellectuals associated with the Surrealist movement in art, based in Birmingham, England from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. The key figures were the artists Conroy Maddox and John Melville, alongside Melville's brother, the art critic Robert Melville. Other significant members included artists Emmy Bridgwater, Oscar Mellor and the young Desmond Morris. In its early years the group was distinguished by its opposition to a London-based vision of Surrealism epitomised by the English exhibitors at the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition. The Birmingham group saw this as unauthentic or even anti-Surrealist, preferring instead to build links directly with Surrealism's French heartland. As World War II approached, however, and the London-based British Surrealist Group fell under the influence of European exiles such as E. L. T. Mesens and Toni del Renzio. The philosophical approaches of the two groups converged and they formed increasingly co-operative and overlapping parts of a wider international Surrealist movement.