Born in Hamilton, Melvin Day began formal art training at eleven years of age. He attended classes at Elam School of Art under the tutelage of John Weeks, Lois White and Ida Eise, becoming a full-time student in 1939 and graduating in 1942. Day spent the war years in the New Zealand Army and then the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Following this, he taught at Ngongataha and in 1954 extended his studies, gaining a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University.

From the 1950s onwards Day exhibited widely throughout New Zealand and in 1961 at the Commonwealth Art Today exhibition in London. Whilst based in London, during the early 1960s, he attended Professor Anthony Blunt's lectures at the Courtauld Institute....