(Reprinted with permission from The University Reporter)
A husband, a father and grandfather, a soldier, a teacher, a writer and a traveler of the world, Charles Merrill finds solace in the quiet communication of the watercolors craft he discovered when he first purchased brushes and paints during a trip through Europe in 1969.
For the next month, UMass Boston’s Harbor Art Gallery will show a retrospective of 30 years of work by this distinguished educator, philanthropist and man of letters. A reception for the artist takes place from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, May 19.
“As one comes closer to the end of the trail, one asks what is left. What has one accomplished? What might others remember or never know?” asks Merrill, 82. “A water color exhibit is a pretty fragile statement, but when the background has been blowing up passenger planes and bombing peasant villages, maybe it stands for something of value.”
The Beacon Hill resident cites European influences, from the colors, papers and brushes he bought in Zurich during that 1969 tour to the artists Klee, Malevich, Mondrain, Kandisnsky, Kupka and Ben Nicholson.
“Since my job was dependent on words and people, I was grateful for the silence and solitude of painting,” Merrill says.
The show at UMass Boston will give the public a rare glimpse of a man who succeeded in establishing one of the nation’s finest private high schools, the Commonwealth School. Merrill, son of the late founder of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, launched the school in 1958 and managed it as a teacher and headmaster until 1981.
“It was the most important job I ever had and demanded every bit of skill and endurance I possessed,” says Merrill, a veteran of service to both the Canadian and American armies who was wounded by shrapnel during the 141st Infantry Regiment’s September 9, 1943 landing in Italy.
His book, “The Walled Garden”, a memoir of the school, was cited by the Boston Globe as “almost as complex, paradoxical, outrageous, witty, honest, evasive and moving as he is.”
Larry Geffin, an art teacher at the Commonwealth School since 1976, recalls Merrill’s headmaster desk, cluttered with the papers and watercolors of the morning’s work.
“Merrill’s paintings are reminiscent of stained glass,” says Geffin. “Tiny geometric shapes of transparent color work together to form glowing and vibrant patterns.”
Between May 19 and June 19, the Merrill retrospective will be shown from noon to 5 p.m. at the Harbor Art Gallery, 1st Floor, McCormack Building, UMass Boston.
The exhibit may be seen during off hours and weekends through appointment, by calling 617-287-7988.