"Merton Clivette official web site. His life, biography, paintings, sculptures and studios. Selection of press, exhibitions and museums."
Merton Clive Cook (1868–1931), also known as Merton Clivette, was an American painter, magician, writer, vaudevillian and entertainer who spent most of his early life traveling the world entertaining before settling in New York to paint permanently. As a very highly regarded American artist of the early 20th century by his peers (including Maurice Sterne, Waldo Pierce, Edward Bruce, Marcel Sauvage and Michel Georges-Michel of Paris, among others), his style can be identified with the American expressionist movement. Clivette is also known to be one of several artists who most defined the Ashcan realism period in New York at that time. Clivette was remarkable in that he demonstrated artistic talent painting in a free flowing manner rarely painting over a line twice. During the 1920s his style evolved as he moved from realism toward expressionism eventually moving on to figurative and the abstract.
