Love Locked Out is an oil painting by Anna Lea Merritt first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890 and which became the first painting by a woman artist acquired for the British national collection through the Chantrey Bequest.
| Love Locked Out | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Anna Lea Merritt |
| Completion date | 1890 |
| Type | genre art |
| Medium | oil paint |
| Subject | Cupid |
| Dimensions | 115.6 cm × 64.1 cm (45.5 in × 25.2 in) |
| Location | Tate Britain, London |
| Accession | N01578 |
| Website | TATE online |
The painting of Cupid standing before a locked door was well received when it was shown. Merritt's first painting of a nude model, Eve Overcome with Remorse, had met with unfavourable reviews after winning a medal at the Royal Academy in 1885.[1] But this painting, which was created as a memorial to her husband, was received favourably, though it again featured a nude model - and this time the model was male, a controversial subject for women artists at that time.[1] Merritt escaped censure by choosing a child to portray Cupid, rather than an adult, such as her Eve had been.[2]
As a notable work by an American painter, Love Locked Out was included in the 1905 book Women Painters of the World.[3] The title also became the title for the compilation of Anna Lea Merritt's memoirs, published by Galina Gorokhoff in 1982.[4]
The piece was purchased in 1890 by the Chantry fund, London, for £250 (after inflation, would be equivalent to ~£26,300 in 2023). Clara Erskine Clement, an American author noted that ".. this honor has been accorded to few women, and of these I think Mrs. Merritt was first."[5]
References edit
- ^ a b Clarke, Meaghan E. (2004). "Merritt, Anna Massey Lea (1844–1930)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/63111. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Love Locked Out on the website of Tate Britain
- ^ Women painters of the world, from the time of Caterina Vigri, 1413–1463, to Rosa Bonheur and the present day, pp. 77 & 139, by Walter Shaw Sparrow, The Art and Life Library, Hodder & Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London, 1905
- ^ "Love locked out: the memoirs of Anna Lea Merritt with a checklist of her works", edited by Galina Gorokhoff, Museum of Fine Arts of Boston, 1982
- ^ Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D by Clara Erskine Clement (1904)
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