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Daniel
Merriam
Born in 1963 in York, Maine, Daniel Merriam grew up in
Naples, a rural town within the vast, quiet spaces of Central Maine. One of
seven children in a creative, artistic family, he taught himself to paint at a
very young age and used his art as a method of reflective play throughout his
childhood. He studied mechanical and architectural design at the Central Maine
Vocational Technical Institute. While still in school, he applied his
dimensional skills and passion for architecture in the family’s design and
construction business.
He then turned his talents to the commercial art field,
working as an architectural and commercial illustrator for a number of
multi-national corporations. Merriam’s illustrations received numerous awards
including several first-place Broderson Awards (the annual Maine advertising
industry award) and the first-place New England Scholastics Press Association
Award (for editorial cartooning.)
Yet Merriam’s true passion remained painting the
expression of his own vision. In 1987 he shifted his focus solely to fine art
and had his first solo exhibition at Abacus Gallery in Maine. In the same year,
the artist received an Honorary Masters of Humane Letters from the University
of New England in recognition of the potential social contribution of his work.
Since that time, Merriam has had over one hundred exhibitions throughout the
United States, Europe and the Middle East.
In 1998, Monarch Editions, Inc. published The Art of
Daniel Merriam: The Impetus of Dreams - selections from a decade of the
artist’s work. The book’s second edition was published in 2002. Merriam’s most
recent catalogue reisonné The Eye of a Dreamer was released in October 2007.
Both catalogues reisonné were inducted into the permanent archives of the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Illustration, and
the Peninsular Museum of Art.
The artist’s work appears in Dreamscape: The Best of
Imaginary Realism, Volume I and II, published by SALBRU PUBLISH (the
Netherlands) in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Merriam has produced paintings for
the covers of books by Paula Volsky and Neal Barrett Jr. published by Bantam
Books, as well as for an international literary journal, Mid-American Review.
Merriam’s work was used for the playbill of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by
William Shakespeare produced by the Tony® Award-winning McCarter Theatre in New
Jersey.
Daniel Merriam has been interviewed on WCSH (Portland, ME);
KEYT (Santa Barbara, CA); KUSI News (San Diego, CA); Sedona Now (Sedona, AZ); 7days
News (Dubai, UAE); France 3 Quercy-Rouergue (Rodez, France). He has been the subject of feature articles
in numerous national and international publications, such as Art &
Antiques, Gulf Connoisseur, IN New York, New Art International, Realms of
Fantasy, The World & I, U.S. Art, Watercolor Magic. Merriam’s work is
included in the public collections of The Riverside Museum of Art, CA; Merrill
Lynch, CA; The Gesundheit! Institute,
VA; the Manhattan Club, NY, among others.
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