Richard Merkin

Who was Richard Merkin?

Richard Merkin was an American painter and illustrator. Merkin's fascination with the 1920s and 1930s defined his art and shaped his identity as a professional dandy. Merkin traveled back in time as an artist, to the time of the interwar years, creating narrative scenes in bright colors of jazz musicians, film stars, writers, and sports heroes. Merkin was as well known for his painting and illustration work as he was for his eccentric collecting habits and his outré fashion sense.

Merkin was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1938, and held an undergraduate degree in fine art from Syracuse University in 1960, a Master's Degree in art from Michigan State University in 1961, and a Master's Degree in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1963. In 1962–63 he received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship in Painting and, in 1975, The Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from The National Institute of Arts and Letters.

Merkin began teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1963 and remained there for 42 years, during which time he built his reputation in New York.