Merrell & Morrill

Given the coincidence of their similar last names, the fact that they both earned MFA degrees from Yale School of Art, and that they both teach painting at major Pittsburgh universities, Clayton Merrell and Michael Morrill would almost appear to be living parallel lives. While their painting practices are not twins by any means, there are some compelling parallels between the bodies of work that are created in these two Pittsburgh studios. Over the past ten years, occasional studio visits by the artists have fostered an ongoing understanding of these common threads and this exhibition of their recent work highlights these thematic and visual commonalities. Both artists work in modes of painting indebted to the European avant-garde of the early twentieth century and have also found connections to nineteenth-century American landscape painting that inform their practice in subtle and surprising ways. The profound developments of Modernism and the concurrent ascent of a uniquely American art provide a broad, complex and intertwined history in which both artists roam.

Hours:

Museum Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday 11 AM – 5 PM
Friday until 9 PM
Closed Monday and Tuesday