1. Melvin Norman "Pat" Day was a New Zealand artist and art historian.
11 Facts About Melvin Day
1. 2.
At the age of eleven, Day began Saturday morning classes at Elam School of Art, University of Auckland, under the tutelage of Archie Fisher, John Weeks, Lois White and Ida Eise.
3.
Apart from a brief period at the Auckland Teachers' Training College, Melvin Day spent the remaining war years in the New Zealand Army and then the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
4.
Melvin Day married Oroya McAuley in 1952 and lived and worked at that time in Rotorua.
5.
In 1963 Melvin Day enrolled at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, under the direction of art historian professor Anthony Blunt.
6.
At the Courtauld Institute, Melvin Day developed a fascination for the geometric precision in the paintings of Italian Renaissance artist, Paolo Uccello and began what were to become the celebrated modernist adaptations of his Uccello series.
7.
Melvin Day was appointed the director of the National Art Gallery of New Zealand in 1968, while there making purchases of paintings by Colin McCahon, Don Binney and Gordon Walters, before the primacy of their work was established.
8.
Since that time, Melvin Day's paintings have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions.
9.
In 1990, Melvin Day was encouraged by the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Trust to paint Donald McIntyre.
10.
Melvin Day's work engages with various periods of western art history, exploring philosophical as well as formal concerns.
11.
Melvin Day had been predeceased by his wife, Oroya, in 2014.