biographie de Anna Massey Lea MERRITT (1844-1930)

Birth place: Philadelphia, PA

Death place: London

Addresses: Andover, Hampshire, England (with frequent visits to Phila.)

Profession: Painter, muralist, etcher, illustrator, writer

Studied: Stefano Ussi, Florence; Heinrich Hoffman, Dresden, Germany; H. Merritt, London, beginning 1871

Exhibited: Royal Acad., Royal Soc. Portrait Painters, Royal Soc. British Artists, Royal Soc. Painter-Etchers & Engravers, London, 1870s-; Phila. Soc. Artists; PAFA Ann., 1877-78 (as Lea), 1881-82, 1889, 1894-1907, 1915, 1924 (as Merritt); BAC, 1880, 1882, 1889; NAD, 1881, 1883; BMFA; NAC; Plastic Cl.; Centenn. Expo, Phila., 1876 (prize); "Women Etchers of Am.," 1888; Paris Expo, 1889 (prize); Columbian Expo, Chicago, 1893 (medals); Atlanta Expo, 1895 (med.); Paris Salon, 1883 (as Mme. V. Anna Léa Merritt); Pan-Am. Expo, Buffalo, 1901 (med.); AIC, 1908; NY Etching Cl.; SC; BAC; Mass. Charitable Mechanic Assoc.; Phila. Soc. Etchers; Berlin Soc. of Etchers, BMFA; Ohio Valley Centennial, 1999, Women's Bldg., Columbian Expo, 1893; St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Expo; Corcoran Gal. biennial, 1910

Member: Plastic Cl.; Royal Soc. Painter-Etchers, London

Work: "Love Locked Out," Tate Gal., London; Nat. Gal. British Art, London; PAFA; Harvard; Oxford; St. Martin's Church, Wanersh, Guildford, England.

Comments: Painter of portraits, genre, historical works. She married her teacher, the art critic, artist, and painting restorer, Henry Merritt (d.1877). Her career reached its peak in 1890 when her painting "Love Locked Out" was purchased by the Chantrey Fund of London. Auth.: "A Letter to Artists: Especially Women Artists," Lippincott's Monthly Magazine 65 (1900): 463-69; Memoir of Henry Merritt; A Hamlet in Old Hampshire; An Artist's Garden.

Sources: WW29; Fink, Am. Art at the 19th-Century Paris Salons, 364, 371 [Fink's list of Americans exhibiting at the Paris Salons, taken from the exh. catalogues, shows a Mme. V. Anna LÈa Merritt, born in Phila, as exhibiting in 1883 with a London address, and also lists an Anna W. Lea, born in Virginia and exhibiting and living in Paris, 1898 and 1899 ó they could be the same person but the latter artist could also be Anna Lee Foster ó see entry]; Petteys, Dictionary of Women Artists; Galina Gorokhoff, ed. Love Locked Out: The Memoirs of Anna Lea Merritt (BMFA, 1982); Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society, 229, 249 , fig. 105; Swinth, Painting Professionals, 159-60; P. Peet, Am. Women of the Etching Revival, 60; Falk, Exh. Record Series.