Biography
Michael Salaman (b. Porlock, Somerset, UK 1911 - d. London 1987) was a member of an artistic Jewish family, which included his sister Merula Salaman (1914-2000), later the wife of Alec Guinness and Ruth Salaman (1900-2011), afterwards Ruth Collet. His father was Michel Hewitt Salaman (1879-1971) and his mother, Chattie Baldwin Wake, both of whom had studied at the Slade School of Fine Art with Augustus John. Michael Salaman held a fine collection of John's drawings. He also studied at the Slade School of Fine Art under Henry Tonks (1928-31), under Albert Rutherston at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford (1930-31), then in Paris at the Academie Ranson (1933-34).
During his six years in Paris he exhibited alongside Picasso, Braque, Bonnard and Dufy, but after returning to England concentrated on teaching. He later taught at Camberwell and Chelsea Schools of Art between the 1940s and mid-1960s, as well as for a short period at the Royal Academy Schools from 1964; his students included Anthony Eyton, Maggi Hambling and Euan Uglow. Salaman's work was included in a mixed exhibition by the Arts Council in 1953; he held a retrospective at the Morley Gallery, London in 1975, and in 1977, he was awarded a civil list pension for his services to art.
Salaman's first commercial exhibition was with Browse and Darby Gallery in Cork Street in 1982, at the age of 71. A second posthumous retrospective was held at the Ben Uri Gallery in 1996 and a family group show, entitled The Salamans was held by James Huntingdon-Whiteley at Gallery 27 in 1997. Salaman's work is held in public collections including the South London Art Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.