Anna Lea Merritt
Anna Massey Lea Merritt (born September 13, 1844 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † April 5, 1930 in Hurstbourne Tarrant , Hampshire , United Kingdom ) was an American painter . She mainly painted portraits, landscapes and religious scenes.
Life
Anna Massey Lea was born on September 13, 1844, the first of six sisters in Philadelphia . Her parents, Joseph Lea and Susanna Massey, were wealthy Quakers . Lea studied anatomy at Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania .
In 1865 the family moved to Europe, where Anna Lea took art lessons from Stefano Ussi , Heinrich Hoffman , Léon Cogniet and Alphonse Legros . In 1870 the family fled the Franco-Prussian War and moved to London . The following year Lea met the art critic and picture restorer Henry Merritt (1822–1877), who first became her tutor and later her husband. They married on April 17, 1877, but Henry Merritt died on July 10 of the same year. Anna Lea had no children and never married a second time. She continued her life in England, but still traveled frequently to the USA. She had exhibitions and received awards in both countries.
Merritt's best-known work is the oil painting Love Locked Out , which was created in memory of her husband, who died a few months after their wedding. Although Merritt was already a well-known painter at that time, she had actually intended to end her career after her wedding, but she continued her artistic work after the death of her husband. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1890 and acquired through the estate of Francis Leggatt Chantrey as the first painting by a female artist for the British National Collection. The work also featured Merritt in the book Women Painters of the World , which provides an overview of well-known female painters up to 1905.
Merritt was a member of the Royal Society of Painters and Etchers in London and exhibited her work regularly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Salon de Paris . Her paintings have also been shown in three world exhibitions, the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 , and the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 .
Anna Lea Merritt died on April 5, 1930 in Hurstbourne Tarrant , a Hampshire village .
Quote
In 1900, Merritt wrote that she was facing less of gender discrimination and more of feeling the social pressures that could stifle a female artist's career, and concluded:
“The chief obstacle to a woman's success is that she can never have a wife. Just reflect what a wife does for an artist: Darns the stockings; keeps his house; writes his letters; visits for his benefit; wards off intruders; is personally suggestive of beautiful pictures; always an encouraging and partial critic. It is exceedingly difficult to be an artist without this time-saving help. A husband would be quite useless. "
“The biggest obstacle to a woman's success is that she can never have a wife. Just consider what a woman does for an artist: she dares the stockings, runs the household, writes his letters, makes visits to his advantage, fends off intruders, herself serves as a stimulus for beautiful pictures and is always an encouraging and benevolent critic . It is extremely difficult to be an artist without this time-saving help. A husband would be completely useless. "
literature
- Meaghan E. Clarke: Merritt, Anna Massey Lea (1844-1930). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004 ( online )
- Galina Gorokhoff: Anna Lea Merritt, expatriate American painter . In: Antiques , June 1983, 1221-1227
- Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein: American Women Artists: From the Early Indian Times to the Present. GK Hall, Boston 1982
- B. Kunz: Merritt, Anna . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 89, de Gruyter, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-023255-4 , p. 167.
Web links
- Anna Lea Merritt on the National Museum of Women in the Arts website
- Anna Lea Merritt in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries database
- Works by Anna Lea Merritt on artuk.org
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anna Lea Merritt: A letter to artists, especially women artists. In: Lippincott's Monthly Magazine , Issue 65, January-June 1900, pp. 463-469. Accessed June 1, 2017.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Merritt, Anna Lea |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Merritt, Anna Massey Lea (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 13, 1844 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 5, 1930 |
| Place of death | Hurstbourne Tarrant , Hampshire , United Kingdom |