Nancie King Mertz | Life in the City

Nancie King Mertz captures the gritty and the grand alike

By Bonnie Gangelhoff

Nancie King Mertz, Hell’s Kitchen, pastel, 28 x 18.

Nancie King Mertz, Hell’s Kitchen, pastel, 28 x 18.

This story was featured in the November 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art November 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

GARBAGE BINS, telephone wires, fire escapes—many folks would consider this back-alley jumble to be an eyesore. But for Chicago artist Nancie King Mertz, the urban street furniture tells a compelling story. “Unsightly elements become intriguing shapes to my eye as I peer down alley-ways for inspiration,” Mertz says. About the wires in particular, she adds, “Their patterns create what I’ve dubbed ‘calligraphy in the sky’ as they twist, swoop, and slice the sky into interesting shapes. For me, the negative space around these elements becomes just as important as the elements themselves.”

Mertz is referring specifically to her painting ALLEY OFF ELM, which is a good example of her take on the urban landscape. In this piece the so-called “unsightly elements” morph into exciting, challenging subject matter for the pastel painter. The painting received a special award and mention at the American Women Artists exhibition titled Making Their Mark, held at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, GA, earlier this year.

In another recent award-winning painting, Mertz spotlights one of her favorite subjects—Chicago’s famous “L,” or elevated-train system. In GRAND VIEW, she goes low to capture the steel beams and girders of the “L” from the street underneath. “This gritty underbelly of the city provides an interesting network of values and patinas,” she says. “The rust and flaking paint demand colors not often associated with pastel painting.”

These days Mertz is well known for her impressionistic take on big-city life. The artist explains that she discovers beauty everywhere, from the grit of the trains to the graceful, towering buildings that stretch upward to the sky. She has painted in great cities around the world, including Rome, Paris, and London. But perhaps the first thing to know about Mertz is that her heart belongs to Chicago.

The artist has lived and painted in the Windy City for more than 30 years, absorbing its many moods and the passing of the seasons over the decades. For an urban painter, Chicago is a treasure trove of stunning and world-renowned architecture, from the neo-Gothic Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue to the ultramodern Aqua building on North Columbus Drive.

As an impressionist, Mertz works quickly, employing loose, spontaneous brush strokes and always choosing to suggest her subject matter rather than depict the painstaking details of a scene. In fact, she routinely follows the advice she offers to students in her workshops: “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” In a recent class demonstration, for example, she created SALUTE IN THE MORNING, a slice of the skyline in Venice, Italy. “Historic buildings are often covered with embellishments that deter painters because of their fear of painting all the details,” she says. “But in this piece, I treated the details as simple value shifts, merely suggesting that the architectural details and embellishments are there rather than drawing the specifics.”

MERTZ GREW up about 150 miles south of Chicago in the small town of Arcola, IL. Her parents like to joke that their young daughter’s first full sentence was, “I want an easel.” Indeed, drawing was an important part of the youngster’s days and nights growing up in the small town. But resources for budding young artists were limited. Mertz’s parents, recognizing their daughter’s talents, began driving her to a nearby town for art lessons with the only teacher in the area. After taking the only art classes that were available at her high school, Mertz enrolled in oil-painting classes at the University of Illinois extension program every summer starting when she was 16 years old. By the time she graduated from high school, she had earned credits towards her degree in fine art.

After completing her bachelor’s degree, Mertz went on to earn a master’s at Eastern Illinois University, where she then spent three years teaching classes. In those early days of her career, she worked mainly in oils, employing a tight, realistic style and often featuring figures as her subject matter. Early on she began entering her artworks into art shows and into competitions sponsored by art magazines.

Then in 1987 her husband, an accountant, received a job offer in Chicago, and the couple packed up their belongings in Arcola and embarked on a new chapter in their lives. Soon Mertz opened a small framing business in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and painted as often as she could. A good friend gave her a set of pastels around that time, Mertz recalls, and from the start, she was hooked on the medium. “I found the pastels to be exciting, rapid for plein-air works, and easy to travel with and teach workshops,” she says.

Looking back on those years, Mertz notes that one of the major influences on her work was her involvement with the plein-air movement and the many paint-outs that sprung up across the country during the 1990s. Then in 2000, artist Scott Tallman Powers founded Plein Air Painters Chicago, and Mertz signed on as one of its initial members. To this day, the cadre of artists paints together nearly every Saturday. The organization, which is an affiliate of the famed Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, encourages members to experience the whole city—the grand as well as “the grit and the grime.” “When I started painting with Plein Air Painters Chicago, my work really loosened and became more suggestive,” Mertz says today.

The experience of working regularly on location in the streets of Chicago—and in countless other outdoor settings—is invaluable, Mertz says. The process allows her to compose “on the fly,” and to work at a fast pace while gaining a crucial and clear understanding of light and shadow. “Maybe it was the small-town influence that kept me painting subjects I could understand and didn’t have to explain,” she says. “My experience with the Chicago plein-air painters freed me to loosen up and share ideas with like-minded artists.”

THESE DAYS Mertz is always on the move. As an artist she wears three berets, so to speak: teacher, business owner, and master pastelist, one who manages to create about 150 paintings a year. She’s on the road frequently sharing her knowledge and experience with students. In 2021 her agenda includes leading 15 painting workshops around the country and abroad, in locations ranging from Taos, NM, to Terni, Italy.

Each workshop Mertz teaches focuses on a specific topic. For example, next August she’ll instruct students how to paint structures in classes held in Old Lyme, CT, a charming coastal town. Then in October she heads to Louisiana for a workshop titled “NOLA with Nancie,” in which students will practice capturing the architecture, courtyards, and street life of New Orleans. She’s equally comfortable painting quiet neighborhoods in New England or the teeming streets of the Big Easy.

When she’s home in Chicago, she teaches workshops and gives demonstrations via Zoom in her home studio. Mertz’s husband, Ron, takes charge of the cameras, lights, and computers. Most days she is also minding her business, Art De Triumph & Artful Framer Studios, now located in Chicago’s Lake-view neighborhood and conveniently situated four blocks from her home. “I am in the shop seven days a week for part of the day to help with framing, pack shipments, and meet with clients. Thankfully, we are still busy in this trying time,” she says, referring to the economic challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

Visitors to Art De Triumph can expect to see an array of Mertz’s paintings hanging salon style throughout the shop—both plein-air and studio work depicting Europe, China, Cuba, and Chicago. The shop is located in a lively neighborhood between Wrigley Field and the Lincoln Park Zoo. Locals and tourists stop in regularly, as do set designers from television crews, who often rent Mertz’s Chicago scenes to grace their sets. So far her paintings have popped up on the walls of popular shows based in the Windy City including The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and Chicago Fire.

Mertz says she is looking forward to 2021 and whatever it brings. One event on tap is a trip to France in May; Art du Pastel en France has named her as its Guest of Honor, which includes a solo show of her works in Giverny. When asked if she has any future goals or new frontiers to conquer, the artist has a ready answer: “I would love to have a space for an artists’ retreat where I can teach and have painters come and stay for a few days of intensive instruction,” she says. That seems like a fitting goal for this lifelong artist and longtime Chicagoan.

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Art De Triumph & Artful Framer Studios, Chicago, IL.

This story was featured in the November 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art November 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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