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d. June 4, 2017. Over the course of decades as an illustrator, Norman Merritt documented some of the South Bay’s most iconic scenes and celebrities in hundreds of landscapes and portraits. The 82-year old Redondo Beach resident died Sunday after a years-long battle with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. He left behind a wide ranging legacy of art throughout the South Bay, including murals at local schools and paintings of several of the region’s well-known landmarks. Born in Redondo Beach, Merritt attended Redondo Union High before he moved on to El Camino College and eventually the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena and the Famous Artists School in Westport, Connecticut. After four years in the Army, Merritt returned to the South Bay and began his work as a freelance illustrator in the early 1960s, said Al Davino, Merritt’s son-in-law. Later in his career, he was president of the Society of Illustrators and co-founded the Los Angeles chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild. “I think in the long run he had a really good, long full life,” said Merritt’s son, Mark. “People that knew my dad, they didn’t like him, they loved him.” Merritt had a talent for portraits and likenesses, Davino said. He enjoyed creating those pieces, in part, because it gave him a chance to be work with the subjects of his pieces, Mark Merritt said. “He was a people person,” he said. He drew several notable celebrities, including San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana and boxing icon Muhammad Ali. Mark Merritt recounted a story of his father going to Ali’s home to prepare for a portrait of the boxer. As part of his process, Merritt took photos of his subjects, and used the images as a basis for his pieces. After several rounds of approvals to allow Merritt into Ali’s home, the artist spent hours taking photos of Ali, only to realize when he got home that there hadn’t been any film in his camera. He eventually returned to take more photos, but not without some razzing from Ali, Mark Merritt said. Aside from his pieces on well-known celebrities, Merritt also put his talents to philanthropic use, drawing portraits of kids in a children’s hospital and painting murals at local schools. That type of work was typical of Merritt, who at one point planned a mural at a Torrance elementary school and then worked with the students to complete it. Bill Robles, who worked with Merritt for years after they graduated from ArtCenter, said Merritt was one of the most spiritual people he knew, a trait that came through in his paintings. “He was a very warm person,” Robles said. “I think that that came out in his work.” Merritt’s wide range of landscapes also memorialized places that were dear to people for a wide range of reasons, his son said. The coastline and blufftops in Merritt’s paintings were the sites of real life milestones for scores of people, and Merritt’s work commemorated those locales in a way that connected with scores of people, Mark Merritt said. “It’s really cool because he developed something that people will appreciate forever,” he said. “It’s work that people truly identify with and appreciate.” Merritt was drawn to art for the same reason many others are, Robles said — to illustrate the beauty around them. “He captured the essence of the whole South Bay,” Robles said. He did most of his work in watercolors, first painting the shadows of a scene in his landscapes, and letting the rest of the portrait develop from there, Davino said. “He would paint the dark areas and let the light kind of come through,” he said. “He saw the dark and he would paint that, and the light would develop the rest of the picture.”

As of: Nov 20, 2019