Hugh Merrill

The following year he returned to MICA, where he discovered printmaking, specifically etching, a medium that would become his primary means of expression for the next four decades.

There, he studied with John Cage, Gabor Pederti, William Bailey, Alex Katz, Robert Motherwell, Al Held and others, all of whom would have a profound impact on his thinking and work.

In the 1970s, Hugh Merrill began working on etchings of the urban environment, which he termed “real-estatescapes,” a phrase meant to represent the dominance of society over nature.

He returned from a trip to Poland, photographing and doing drawings in Kraków and Auschwitz, determined to balance his studio vision with community arts actions.

Since its creation, Merrill has gone on to use Portrait of Self in community arts projects in Dana Beach, Florida; Sydney, Australia; Dublin, Ireland, as well as Colorado Springs, CO; Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, OR; and a number of other cities nationwide.

Faces was a collaboration with Patrick Moonasar and Matt Hilger which produced a series of posters of homeless children showing not their need but their value.

In addition, Hugh Merrill has been invited on Kansas City Medical Missions trips to the Philippines, Guatemala and Cuba, and has worked with Soulfari to build an orphanage in Kenya.

[6] Hugh Merrill has been a speaker at numerous conferences, including the College Art Association and The Southern Graphics Council,[7] of which he was president in the early 1990s.