Merion Estes Sold at Auction Prices

Painter

Merion Estes (Born 1938) is known for mixed media paintings using fabric collage, various paints and photo downloads to depict dystopian, apocalyptic landscapes. She was a Feminist activist in the 70s in Los Angeles and a pioneer in the area of painting known as Pattern and Decoration.

Estes has had an active professional career since 1972. She was involved in early Feminist organizations including Womanspace and the first Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, where she was a founding member of the first and last women’s co-op. The gallery included Judy Chicago, Faith Wilding, Judith Simonian, Nancy Youdelman and other notable artists. When that ended after eighteen months, Estes and a group from the co-op founded XX a social service group dedicated to exposing women’s works to a wider audience through curated shows in alternative spaces. The group published an historical book documenting all the various women’s groups of the time, By Our Own Hands, and sponsored a lecture series. For over 45 years she has appeared in notable exhibitions such as Post Cool at the San Jose Museum of Art and A Sea of Possibilities, a 35-year retrospective in 2006 at the Pomona College Museum of Art.