Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery
at Keene State College
Keene, NH
603-358-2720
http://www.keene.edu/tsag/welcome.htm
Richard Meryman: For the
Love of Painting
The first overview
exhibit of paintings by Dublin artist Richard
Meryman will be presented by the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery in
Keene. "Richard Meryman: For the Love of Painting" will open Saturday,
June 9, and continue through Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2001 at the gallery, located
on the Keene State College campus.
The Friends of the Dublin Art Colony and
the Thorne Gallery organized the exhibition of landscape, portrait, and
still-life paintings by Richard Sumner Meryman (1881-1963). Meryman was
a member of the Dublin artists' colony, which flourished at the foot of
Mount Monadnock in the early 20th century. Meryman, born in Chelsea, Mass.,
was a student at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts when he traveled
to Dublin in 1906 to work for Abbott
Handerson Thayer, the painter and naturalist. Meryman became part
of Thayer's inner circle and kept a home in Dublin for the rest of his life.
Meryman became a portrait painter, receiving commissions from many members
of Dublin society, including Rob Sagendorph, founder of "Yankee"
magazine and his wife, beaTrix Sagendorph, founder of the Thorne Gallery.
(left: Richard Sumner Meryman (1881-1963), Untitled, n.d., oil on
canvas, 23 x 28 inches)
Meryman also painted many dignitaries' portraits while
director of the art school at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington,
D.C. He painted university presidents, generals and admirals, the secretary
of the Navy, chief justice of the Supreme Court, a senator from Tennessee,
and President Coolidge's son. By 1935 modernism permeated the art world,
and Meryman's tradition of 19th-century realism was no longer the training
students wanted. He returned to live year-round in Dublin, where he sold
landscapes from his studio. He also ran an art school in town with painter
Alexander James. However,
he continued to receive portrait commissions and became New Hampshire's
official portraitist, painting many former governors including Sherman Adams,
who became President Eisenhower's chief of staff.
Meryman was an important, but lesser known, member of the
Dublin Art Colony. He refused to advance
himself in the art world, blaming art dealers for promoting abstract art.
He had only one formal exhibition of his work in 1951, which he organized
himself in a Dubliner's barn.
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