John Melville is one of English art`s neglected modernists par excellence. Working in relative isolation in Birmingham, his compelling hybrid style - a mixture of surrealism and cubism - yielded memorable images of the figure or still life. In spite of his provincial position, he was by no means unknown. He exhibited with leading dealers like Lucy Wertheim and Erica Brausen, won the critical endorsement of Herbert Read and showed many times with the English surrealist group.

His later work saw this gifted and individual artist step beyond the influence of Picasso and create wildly expressive landscapes of a disturbing, disquieting or apocalyptic kind. Although generally out of sync with the hedonistic Sixties...