ABOUT THE ARTIST | Born in 1963 in a rural town in Maine, Daniel Merriam is one of seven artistic children. He taught himself to paint at a very young age, and used his art as a method of reflective play throughout his childhood. He went on to study mechanical and architectural design at Central Maine Vocational Technical Institute. While still in school, he applied his dimensional skills and passion for architecture to his family’s design and construction business.
Merriam first turned professionally to the field of architectural design, where his illustrations received numerous awards including several Broderson Awards, a New England Scholastic Press Association Award, and an Honorary Masters of Human Letters from the University of New England in recognition of the potential social contribution of his work. However, throughout this experience, his true passion remained painting the expression of his own inner vision.
In 1986, Merriam shifted his focus solely to fine art, and later that year had his first solo exhibition in Maine. Since then, his exhibitions throughout the United States & Europe have been lauded and achieved critical acclaim. In 1998, Monarch Editions published The Art of Daniel Merriam: The Impetus of Dreams, which captured selections from a decade of the artist’s work. In 2005 the book was inducted into the permanent archives of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2006, Eye of the Dreamer was released by the same publisher and has also been included in the library of New York’s Society of Illustrators.
Merriam’s work is included in countless private collections and in such public collections as The Riverside Museum of Art in California, The Gesundheit! Institute in Virginia, the Manhattan Club in New York, and the Merrill Lynch collection.