Robert Medley

British painter and theatre designer, born in London. He studied at the Byam Shaw School, London, 1921–3, the Royal Academy Schools briefly in 1924, the Slade School, 1924–6, and in Paris under Jean Marchand, 1926–7. In the 1930s he worked with the left-wing Group Theatre, designing sets and costumes for plays by W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Christopher Isherwood, and Louis MacNeice. During this period he became interested in Surrealism and his work was included in the London International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936. In the Second World War he worked mainly on camouflage in the Middle East.

From 1958 to 1965 he was head of the Department of Fine Art at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. His main subjects as a painter were landscape, still-life, and figure compositions. In 1976 he played the role of Diocletian in Derek Jarman's film Sebastiane and in 1983 he published an autobiography, Drawn from Life. He continued working and exhibiting until the end of his long life and in the year of his death he won a prize for the most distinguished work in the Royal Academy summer exhibition.