James R. Mellow

James Robert Mellow (February 28, 1926 — November 22, 1997) was an American art critic and biographer. After starting his art career in the mid 1950s, Mellow primarily worked in editorial positions for Arts Magazine and Industrial Design during the 1960s. As an art critic from the mid 1960s to mid 1970s, Mellow worked for The New Leader, Art International, and The New York Times. Apart from art, Mellow became a biographer in 1974 when he released a biography on Gertrude Stein.

From 1980 to 1992, Mellow released further biographies on Nathaniel Hawthorne, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway. For his completed works, Mellow received a National Book Award nomination for Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Company. When the National Book Award was replaced with the American Book Award, Mellow won the 1983 paperback autobiography/biography category for Nathaniel Hawthorne In His Times. That year, Mellow also received a Guggenheim Fellowship. For his final publication, Mellow's biography on Walker Evans was posthumously released in 1999 after Mellow died during the writing process.