Meryle Secrest is an award-winning American biographer, primarily of American artists and art collectors.

Biography

Secrest was born in Bath, England and educated there. Her family emigrated to Canada, where she began her career as a journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

. She worked as women's editor for the Hamilton News in Ontario, Canada; shortly thereafter she was named "Most Promising Young Writer" by the Canadian Women's Press Club

Canadian Women's Press Club

Canadian Women's Press Club was founded in 1904, the year that the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was held in St. Louis, Missouri. In June of that year, journalist and feminist Margaret Graham of Ottawa went to see Col. George Ham, the publicity agent for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Graham went...

. In 1964 she began writing for the Washington Post, doing profile interviews of notable personalities from Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

 to Anaïs Nin

Anaïs Nin

Anaïs Nin was a French-Cuban author, based at first in France and later in the United States, who published her journals, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death, her erotic literature, and short stories...

.

In 1975 she left the Post to write books full-time. Since then she has written a number of critically acclaimed biographies; her subjects have included Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

, Joseph Lord Duveen, Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

, Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, Salvador Dali

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

, Kenneth Clark

Kenneth Clark

Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation...

, Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in pioneering art attribution and therefore establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".-Personal life:...

, Romaine Brooks

Romaine Brooks

Romaine Brooks, born Beatrice Romaine Goddard , was an American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri. She specialized in portraiture and used a subdued palette dominated by the color gray...

, and Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers

Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...

. She has also published an autobiography entitled Shoot the Widow.

She now lives in Washington, D.C.

Books

• Between Me and Life: A Biography of Romaine Brooks, 1974.
• Being Bernard Berenson, 1979.
• Kenneth Clark: A Biography, 1984.
• Salvador Dalí, 1986.
• Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, 1992.
• Leonard Bernstein: A Life, 1994.
• Stephen Sondheim: A Life, 1998.
• Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers, 2001.
• Duveen: A Life in Art, 2004.
• Shoot the Widow: Adventurers of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject, 2007

Awards and recognition

Secrest's Being Bernard Berenson was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

in 1980 and for the American Book Awards in 1981. In 2006 she received the National Humanities Medal.

External links

• http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/2007/authors/Secrest.html Library of Congress bio
• http://www.pulitzer.org/index.html Pulitzer Prize finalists
• http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061108.html Announcement of National Humanities Medal winners
• http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2003-07/secrest.html Transcript of an interview by NEH chief Bruce Cole with Secrest