Robert F. Merton/Artist Bio

Painter Robert F. Merton is familiar with the significance of historical perspective.  His grandfather, Robert K. Merton, was a groundbreaking sociologist, who coined terms like 'self-fulfilling prophecy', and 'unintended consequences'.  His father Robert C. Merton, won a Nobel prize in economics in 1997 for his work on a new method to determine the value of derivatives.  And his own study of 15th-17th century European history, when a human-powered economy evolved into a mechanized economy (and a mechanized society), has influenced his understanding of the transitions through which society and  its members must evolve.  "The transition period is what interests me," says Merton.  "We are in an era of change, and we must embrace that."  

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974, in the same year his father was named a full professor at MIT, Rob followed a divergent path from his famous forebears at an early age.  After graduating high school, he went to Viterbo, Italy, about 60 miles north of Rome, to study photography and painting.  Here he began to work out his style of multiple layering of paints on canvas, which he would enlarge upon more than a decade later.  After returning to the US, he spent a year at business school Babson College, before attending the University of Rochester where he majored in Early Modern European History.  During a stint working in management and as a trader at several Wall Street financial services firms, he continued to paint as "therapy", rolling out canvases on the floor of his tiny NYC  apartment, and doing small commissions for commercial spaces.  But life changed when his wife Heather gave birth to their son, Robert A. Merton.  "I have been given a great gift, my son, and I want to pass onto him all that I have had passed on to me by my father and grandfather.  And the only way I know how to do that is through painting," says Merton.  "Up until then, I always painted for myself."

Merton's initial techniques were developed out of necessity-small canvases and acrylic paints worked best in his small, poorly ventilated apartment.  But as Merton likes to say, "Nothing happens randomly."  Paintings that did not meet his exacting standards were quickly painted over, sometimes ten times or more.  Some 5' X 6' canvases were painted over so many times, over weeks or even months, that they weighed almost 25 pounds.  That is more than 15 pounds of acrylics, pumice, sand and glass.  But that was not really the point.  "Even one layer that took one hour, everything I do builds on what I've done before.  Everything in the past has an effect on the present," says Merton.  What is concealed in Merton's work is that which is also revealed; the years of thought, the layers of paint.  Shrouded by history, but also amplified by its living vibrancy. 

Perhaps the natural progression of generations, from preeminent sociologist, to Nobel Prize winner, to visual artist, to whatever the future may bring for the youngest Merton, not only defines Robert F. Merton's work, but bestows upon it its enduring resonance.  "Not everything has an immediate 'cause and effect'.  But everything in the past has an effect on the present."  Through his work he alludes to the creative sweep of time; but Merton remains firmly rooted in the present, while acknowledging the ever-evolving and challenging journey towards our future.