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Anna Lea Merritt
Anna Massey Lea Merritt (September 13, 1844 – April 7, 1930) was an American artist from Philadelphia who lived and worked in Great Britain for most of her life. A printmaker and painter of portraits, landscapes, and religious scenes, Merritt's art was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. Merritt was a professional artist for most of her adult life, "living by her brush" before her brief marriage to Henry Merritt and after his death.
Anna Massey Lea was born in 1844 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of an affluent Quaker couple, Joseph Lea and Susanna Massey, and the eldest of six sisters. She studied anatomy at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 1865, the family moved to Europe, where she took art lessons from Stefano Ussi, Heinrich Hoffman, Léon Cogniet and Alphonse Legros. They moved to London in 1870 to escape the Franco-Prussian War, and in 1871 she met Henry Merritt (1822–1877), a noted art critic and picture conservator, who would become her tutor and later, her husband. They married April 17, 1877, but he died July 10 the same year. She had no children and did not marry again.
Merritt spent the rest of her life in England, settling at 95 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, (next door to where James McNeill Whistler once lived, and where he painted his Whistler's Mother). Merrit made frequent trips between her home in England and the United States; she had exhibitions, garnered awards in both countries, and become a celebrated artist. She exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
After her husband died Anna contributed 23 etchings to illustrate a book of his art criticism.
In 1894–95 she painted scenes on the walls of St Martin's Church, Blackheath village, where she painted on dry plaster using silicone-based paints, which was a new technique intended to counter the effects of dampness. The paintings are scenes from the life of Christ.
Anna was both an artist and a writer. When she wrote for The Century Magazine and Lippincott's Magazine she used the pseudonym "An exile".
She died in England on April 5, 1930, in Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire.
Merritt painted her best-known work, Love Locked Out, in 1890, in memory of her husband who had died in 1877 just three months after their wedding. She had hoped to have the image, a portrayal of Cupid standing before a locked door, done in bronze as a monument, but could not afford it. Merritt initially resisted allowing the painting to be copied despite innumerable requests, because she feared the subject would be misinterpreted: "I feared people liked it as a symbol of forbidden love," she wrote in her memoir, "while my Love was waiting for the door of death to open and the reunion of the lonely pair".
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Anna Lea Merritt
Anna Massey Lea Merritt (September 13, 1844 – April 7, 1930) was an American artist from Philadelphia who lived and worked in Great Britain for most of her life. A printmaker and painter of portraits, landscapes, and religious scenes, Merritt's art was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. Merritt was a professional artist for most of her adult life, "living by her brush" before her brief marriage to Henry Merritt and after his death.
Anna Massey Lea was born in 1844 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of an affluent Quaker couple, Joseph Lea and Susanna Massey, and the eldest of six sisters. She studied anatomy at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 1865, the family moved to Europe, where she took art lessons from Stefano Ussi, Heinrich Hoffman, Léon Cogniet and Alphonse Legros. They moved to London in 1870 to escape the Franco-Prussian War, and in 1871 she met Henry Merritt (1822–1877), a noted art critic and picture conservator, who would become her tutor and later, her husband. They married April 17, 1877, but he died July 10 the same year. She had no children and did not marry again.
Merritt spent the rest of her life in England, settling at 95 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, (next door to where James McNeill Whistler once lived, and where he painted his Whistler's Mother). Merrit made frequent trips between her home in England and the United States; she had exhibitions, garnered awards in both countries, and become a celebrated artist. She exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
After her husband died Anna contributed 23 etchings to illustrate a book of his art criticism.
In 1894–95 she painted scenes on the walls of St Martin's Church, Blackheath village, where she painted on dry plaster using silicone-based paints, which was a new technique intended to counter the effects of dampness. The paintings are scenes from the life of Christ.
Anna was both an artist and a writer. When she wrote for The Century Magazine and Lippincott's Magazine she used the pseudonym "An exile".
She died in England on April 5, 1930, in Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire.
Merritt painted her best-known work, Love Locked Out, in 1890, in memory of her husband who had died in 1877 just three months after their wedding. She had hoped to have the image, a portrayal of Cupid standing before a locked door, done in bronze as a monument, but could not afford it. Merritt initially resisted allowing the painting to be copied despite innumerable requests, because she feared the subject would be misinterpreted: "I feared people liked it as a symbol of forbidden love," she wrote in her memoir, "while my Love was waiting for the door of death to open and the reunion of the lonely pair".
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