Knud Merrild

After completing an apprenticeship as a painter, Knud Merrild studied art and design in Denmark. He worked primarily as a ceramist before he immigrated to the United States in 1921. He and another Danish artist, Kai G. Götzsche, travelled around and met D. H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda. The Lawrence’s convinced them to remain in New Mexico for the winter. During the winter of 1922-23 Merrild created a body of work relating to New Mexico and later wrote a book about his experiences with D. H. Lawrence, A Poet and Two Painters, which was first published in 1939 and made him well-known.

In 1927, Merrild went to Los Angeles for the next 25 years. There he created his most significant work, an output of several hundred works in a range of styles. Merrild’s early works were cubist inspired paintings and watercolours. He later experimented with different materials in an effort to create works with three-dimensional outputs.

His works were mostly described as surrealistic and were included in recent survey exhibitions dealing with Surrealism in the United States. In 1942 he developed a totally new technique of painting which he called “flux”, a process by which he alternatively poured or dripped paints onto a fluid surface. In some cases, the resulting works were entirely abstract while in others, concrete images could be recognized.

In 1952 Merrild suffered a heart attack and returned to his native country seeking less expensive medical care. He did not produce any more work in Denmark and died in 1954.

Only two of his submitted paintings for the Olympics could be identified: “Tennis Player”, a stencil cardboard with watercolour and gouache from 1932, sized 38 x 28 cm, and “Soccer”, an oil on canvas painting in the format 96,5 x 66 cm, created around 1928. Both apparently date from his Cubist phase.