Dorothy Mead

Dorothy Mead (1928–1975) was a British painter.

Mead was born in London, England, but adopted at three months old by a family in Walthamstow. Her mother had a florists shop She first met David Bomberg (1890–1957) when he was teaching at the South east Essex School of Art at Dagenham School of Art in 1944. She followed him when he moved to the City Literary Institute in London and then to the Borough Polytechnic where she studied under Bomberg from 1945 to 1951. Mead was a founder member of the Borough Group in 1946 together with other pupils of Bomberg including Cliff Holden.

From 1956 until 1959, Mead was a mature student at the Slade School of Art, following Bomberg's inspiration. Here she met artist and teacher Andrew Forge. She had a major influence on students such as Patrick Procktor and Mario Dubsky and was the first woman president of the student annual exhibiting society, Young Contemporaries (later renamed New Contemporaries), in 1959. The previous year, the Slade awarded her the Figure Painting Prize, and the Steer Prize. In 1959 she was asked to leave the Slade, in spite of her award-winning work, because she refused to sit the course on perspective. She believed - with Bomberg - that the stylistic approach was invalid. Her thesis, explaining her view was not accepted by the principal, William Coldstream.

In the Arts Council England series of touring exhibitions, Six Young Painters, Mead exhibited in 1964 with other artists including Peter Blake, William Crozier, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, and Euan Uglow. Mead joined the London Group of artists in 1960. The New Statesman, the left-wing magazine singled her out, when critic David Sylvester remarked she tends to affirm the supremacy of light, as women's painting often does. Holden, her partner said Dorothy sticks to her principals, but like myself and Bomberg was an outsider.

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