Painter. Primarily known for his watercolors, landscapes, and seascapes. He was a devotee of Paul Cézanne, showing the influence of a post-impressionist representional style. Merton was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, and after 1904 spent much of his life in France and North Africa. He married an American art student, Ruth Jenkins, in 1914. Merton lived from mid-1914 to mid-1916 in Prades, southern France, where their first son, Thomas, was born in 1915. Thomas Merton later became a well-known Roman-Catholic convert, theologian, Trappist monk, writer, and political activist. World War I drove him from France, along with his wife and son to New York in 1916. His wife died of stomach cancer in 1921. Although Merton was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists, during his lifetime he exhibited his paintings with varying degrees of success. The recognition of his work has been mostly posthumous. His paintings are on permanent display in galleries around the world, most particularly in England and New Zealand. He died of a brain tumor at Middlesex Hospital in London.
Painter. Primarily known for his watercolors, landscapes, and seascapes. He was a devotee of Paul Cézanne, showing the influence of a post-impressionist representional style. Merton was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, and after 1904 spent much of his life in France and North Africa. He married an American art student, Ruth Jenkins, in 1914. Merton lived from mid-1914 to mid-1916 in Prades, southern France, where their first son, Thomas, was born in 1915. Thomas Merton later became a well-known Roman-Catholic convert, theologian, Trappist monk, writer, and political activist. World War I drove him from France, along with his wife and son to New York in 1916. His wife died of stomach cancer in 1921. Although Merton was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists, during his lifetime he exhibited his paintings with varying degrees of success. The recognition of his work has been mostly posthumous. His paintings are on permanent display in galleries around the world, most particularly in England and New Zealand. He died of a brain tumor at Middlesex Hospital in London.
Bio by: William Seitz
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