Love Locked Out
 | |
| Artist | Anna Lea Merritt |
|---|---|
| Completion date | 1890 |
| Type | genre art |
| Medium | oil paint |
| Subject | Cupid |
| Dimensions | 145 cm × 930 cm (57 in × 370 in) |
| Location | Tate Britain, London |
| Accession | N01578 |
| Website | TATE online |
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.
The painting was well received when it was shown, though her 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] 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] She escaped censure by choosing a child, 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 memoires, published by Galina Gorokhoff in 1982.[4]
References
- 1 2 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