Tate Archive has a letter sent by Dorothy Mead to her friends David Bomberg and Lilian Holt in 1952 during her travels. She had admired Rembrandt's work in Amsterdam, and then went on to Paris, where she was less impressed: 'I got the feeling that... imperfect though some of our paintings are we at least have higher aims than many of the painters here.'
Mead trained at South-East Essex Technical College Dagenham with David Bomberg. She followed him to the Borough Polytechnic, where she studied from 1945 to 1951, and then went to the Slade. Mead helped to form the Borough Group, organized to promote the work of Bomberg and his students. The strong structures and dynamism of her work shows his influence. The group's first exhibition was held in 1947 at the Archer Gallery and, unusually, included more women than men. Mead showed six works, among them a nude and a cityscape. Snow in South London. She exhibited at other key Borough Group exhibitions and in 1964 her work was shown at the Arts Council exhibition 6 Young Painters, along with Peter Blake, William Cozier, David Hockney, Euan Uglow and Bridget Riley.
Although Mead was highly respected among her contemporaries and became the first woman president of the London Group she was largely overlooked by commercial galleries and was never given a solo exhibition. Two of her paintings, one a self-portrait, were included in the exhibition Bomberg and his Students held at the South Bank University in 1992. |
