Gorleston Artists Campbell A Mellon and Rowland Fisher

Two significant local artists with strong Gorleston links were honoured with Gorleston-on-Sea Heritage Group blue plaques mounted on their former homes.  The plaques were unveiled by Margaret Calver, President of the Great Yarmouth and District Society of Artists, on Tuesday 25th June in front of around 30 people associated with the Society of artists and the Gorleston Heritage group. The artists commemorated were Campbell Mellon and Rowland Fisher, both of whom were founder members of what was originally, in 1927, the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston Society of Artists and both of whom lived for many years in Upper Cliff Road, Gorleston. Margaret Calver gave an outline of the lives and works of both artists.

Campbell Archibald Mellon (1876 – 1955) was born in Berkshire in 1876. His birth was registered as Archie Campbell Mellon, but the forename Archibald seems to have been dropped or moved to his middle name during his adult life.  He worked as a salesman even after moving to Nottingham in 1903 where he also undertook some artistic training from Carl Brenner, a nephew of the landscape painter Benjamin Williams Leader. In 1918, after service in the World War, Mellon moved to and settled in Gorleston, initially at number 2 Upper Cliff Road, moving to number 1 Upper Cliff Road at some time during the 1930s. He met and became acquainted with Sir John Arnesby Brown R.A. (1866-1955). For the next three years Mellon became Sir John’s student and also his friend. Mellon focused on painting seascapes and some of his finest works are of Gorleston beach. He captured the ever changing coastal atmosphere and mood with brilliant tonal qualities, clever use of texture and colour, tending to favour heavy threatening skies. Campbell Mellon became a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy starting from 1924. He was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil in 1938, and to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1939. He was also a founder member and the first Chairman of the Great Yarmouth and District Society of Artists. His works can be found in private collections worldwide and museums nationally including Norwich Castle Museum.

Rowland Fisher (1885–1969) was born in Gorleston and lived in Upper Cliff Road for his whole adult life. He was the son of a master mariner and he too originally wanted to go to sea but was instead apprenticed to a timber yard where he worked for fifty years whilst painting in his spare time. His lifelong love of ships, shown in many of his seascapes, meant that he became an expert ship model maker. He sat for many hours in his house overlooking the harbour and observed the waves and the skies. He is best known for his marine works in oil and watercolour, although he also painted Norfolk landscapes as well as continental scenes. He helped to found the Great Yarmouth and District Society of Artists, of which he later became president, and, following painting holidays, was elected a member of the St Ives Society of Artists. He won the Watts prize in 1949 for the best picture portraying men working at sea. He was later made a member of ROI. He has influenced many of the later East Anglian landscape artists. There is a representative selection of his work in the Norfolk Museums’ collection.