Biography
Merriam studied mechanical and architectural design at 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 into the commercial art field, working as an architectural and commercial illustrator for a number of multi-national corporations. Merriam’s illustrations have won numerous awards, including several first-place Broderson Awards and the first-place New England Scholastics Press Association Award (for editorial cartooning.)
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, selections from a decade of the artist’s work were published in The Art of Daniel Merriam: The Impetus of Dreams. Merriam’s second catalogue reisonné The Art of Daniel Merriam: 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 latest volume Taking Reality by Surprise was published in 2010.
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. The artist’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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