Melvin Day

Who is Melvin Day?

Melvin "Pat" Day, CNZM is a New Zealand artist and art historian.

Day was born in Hamilton, New Zealand. At the age of eleven, Day began Saturday morning classes at Elam School of Art, University of Auckland, under the tuteleage of Archie Fisher, John Weeks, Lois White and Ida Eise. In 1939, he went on to study as a full-time student at Elam, graduating with a preliminary diploma in fine arts two years later. Apart from a brief period at Auckland Teachers’ Training College, Day spent the remaining war years in the New Zealand Army and then the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Due to his drafting abilities he worked on topographical and landscape views of the Matakana area and Mototapu Islands.

He married Oroya McAuley in 1952 and lived and worked at that time in Rotorua. After a few years teaching and painting in the Rotorua area, Day arrived in Wellington in 1954 and took up studies towards a Bachelor of Arts at Victoria University of Wellington while teaching at Hutt Intermediate School. From the late 1950s onwards, he exhibited widely in New Zealand and his work was included in the 1961 Commonwealth Art Today exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute, London. In 1963 Day enrolled at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, under the direction of art historian Professor Anthony Blunt. At the Courtauld Institute, 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.