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.

Life

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. who would become her tutor and later, her husband. They married April 17, 1877, but he died July 10 the same year. 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.

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. 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".

Though Merritt was already a recognized working artist, she had intended to end her professional career after her wedding, but she returned to painting after her husband's death.

By the late 19th century, as private art academies in Europe and America opened enrollment to female students, a growing number of women were able to train to be professional artists. Most women artists of this era found work in genres of art perceived as less prestigious, such as still-life and portraiture.

Merritt created flower paintings, noting floral-feminine symbolism employed by male artists such as Charles Courtney Curran and Robert Reid. She said that she saw "flowers as 'great ladies'" noting that "theirs is the langour of high breeding, and the repose and calm of weary idleness."

Merritt was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, producing a Shakespearean-influenced etching of Ellen Terry as Ophelia and other works that reflected the group's style and spirit.