Joseph Meert

Joseph Meert (1905 - 1989) was an American artist who created three New Deal post office murals.

Joseph John Paul Meert
self portrait, c. 1930
Born1905 (1905)
Brussels, Belgium
Died1989 (aged 83–84)
Waterbury, Connecticut
NationalityAmerican
Known forpainter, printmaker

Biography
Spring Pastoral (1940), Meert's mural at the post office in Mount Vernon, Missouri

Meert was born in 1905 in Brussels, Belgium.[1] As a child he immigrated with his family to Kansas City, Missouri. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and then Art Students League of New York. His teachers included Thomas Hart Benton, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Boardman Robinson, and John Sloan.[2]

While at the Art Students League, Meert became friends with Jackson Pollock. The friendship continued into the 1940s, when Meert retrieved a drunken Pollock from a snow bank where Pollock had fallen unconscious.[2][3]

Meert married fellow artist Margaret Mullin (1910–1980) in the 1930s.[4] The couple located in Kansas City where Meert taught at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1935 through 1941, along with his former teacher Thomas Hart Benton.[2] During this time Meert was commissioned to paint post office murals for the Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture. In 1938 he completed the mural Contemporary Life in Missouri for the Marceline, Missouri, post office. In 1940 he completed the mural Spring Pastoral for the Mount Vernon, Missouri, post office. The same year he completed the mural Harvesting for the Spencer, Indiana, post office.[5] In the 1930s Meert was associated with the Ste. Genevieve Art Colony in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.[6]

In 1941 the Meerts returned to New York and by 1946 Meert's style transitioned into abstract art.[2]

Meert's work was included in 1944 Dallas Museum of Art exhibition of the National Serigraph Society.[7]

Meert's mental health deteriorated in his later years. In 1986 the Pollock-Krasner Foundation provided funds for Meert's care at a facility in Cheshire, Connecticut.[2] Meert died in 1989 in Waterbury, Connecticut.[1]

Meert's work is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago,[8] National Gallery of Art,[9] and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.[1]

In 2009 a retrospective of his work, titled Joseph Meert: painting in the shadow of success was held at the Koehnline Museum of Art.[10]

References
  1. "Joseph Meert". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved July 5, 2022.
  2. "Joseph Meert". Missouri Remembers. Retrieved July 5, 2022.
  3. "Joseph Meert - Biography". AskArt. Retrieved July 5, 2022.
  4. "Margaret Mullin". Missouri Remembers. Retrieved July 5, 2022.
  5. "Artist: Joseph Meert". New Deal Projects. Living New Deal. Retrieved July 5, 2022.
  6. Dick, R. H.; Kerr, Scott (2004). An American art colony : the art and artists of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, 1930-1940. St. Louis, Mo.: McCaughen & Burr Press. p. 213-217. ISBN 978-0976242406.
  7. "National Serigraph Society Exhibition | Dallas Museum of Art". Dallas Museum of Art. Retrieved July 3, 2022.
  8. "Joseph Meert". The Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved July 5, 2022.
  9. Meert, Joseph; Harpaz, Nathan (2009). Retrospective: Joseph Meert : painting in the shadow of success. Oakton Community College. OCLC 439254279. Retrieved July 5, 2022 – via WorldCat.
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