David Merrill (66), died December 24th, 2008 of lung cancer in Bountiful. He was born on February 2, 1942 in Salt Lake City, the only child of Harold Calderwood (Hal) Merrill and LaNae Wilkinson Merrill. He is survived by his mother of Bountiful, Utah, son Nicholas David Merrill of New York City and cousins Steve Kirts and Mike Wilkinson of Salt Lake City.

He began writing his own obituary soon after his diagnosis:

When I was about seven my teacher sent home a note saying, “David has artistic talent and should be encouraged.” I already knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, just not how many avenues there would be.

I grew up in Salt Lake City and Bountiful, Utah and lived one year in Twin Falls, Idaho where I graduated from High School. I attended the University of Utah for two years before transferring to The Art Center School in Los Angeles where I graduated in 1965 with a double major in advertising design and illustration.

I was married three times, in 1964 to Melinda Hunt in Los Angeles, in 1969 to Judith Retter in New York City and in 1994 to Joanne Colvin in Westport, Connecticut. All three marriages ended in divorce. Statistically, according to psychologists, only children have the most difficult time forming successful marriages and I certainly bolstered those statistics.

It could be that having been married three times (consecutively, not concurrently) harkens back to my polygamous ancestry. One of my great-grandfathers, Marriner Wood Merrill, was an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who had eight wives and 47 children. When his church banned the practice, Marriner dissented and kept marrying people into polygamy, including my grandparents, Fred W. Merrill and Elizabeth Calderwood in 1902. Neither my father nor grandmother are mentioned in The Descendents of Marriner Wood Merrill published in 1930 so someone must have
politically-corrected our family history.

I had much more success in my careers than my marriages. I was ambitious and went to New York City after graduation, had interviews at 10 advertising agencies and received seven job offers. The going rate for assistant art directors was a barely sustainable $100 a week in 1965, except from Doyle Dane Bernbach, which I thought was the best agency, which offered $65. Had they offered $100 the next 40 years of my life would have been very different. At my last interview with Ogilvy & Mather I asked for $125, accepted $100, and was told that if I were still there in six months they’d pay me $150. My first boss was seriously injured in an auto accident when I had been there 10 months and I was promoted to art director. Three years later, still in my 20s, I was promoted to senior art director when the head art director said that I was too young to be a senior anything.

At O&M I met a young copywriter who would become my second wife and mother of my only son who I would never have met if Doyle Dane Bernbach had offered me another $35 a week. And so life twists and turns on such arbitrary events. Judy Retter and I had a good marriage, it just didn’t last forever. She was educated to be a fiction writer and when she read an 18-page Christmas letter that I had written to a friend she suggested I keep going, which led to five completed novels over the next 25 years. When an agent suggested a major rewrite of my first, Judy generously offered to support us while I wrote fulltime, so I left Ogilvy & Mather and advertising. It was said that getting a good agent was 90% of the way to publication and I had four of them over the years. Each of them explained, as the rejection slips rolled in, that it was the most difficult time for first novels in his or her memory. I never published and among the things I regret now is that I won’t have time to get back to my writing.

After leaving O&M and finishing the Great American Novel — which wasn’t — I was invited by the art director of Time magazine to do freelance work. After a few months he offered me a job as his assistant in a 26-person art department. LIFE magazine ceased publication soon thereafter and the last art director of LIFE replaced my boss. After a few months I inherited the job which was my second break based on the misfortune of others. While at Time I was responsible for the overall look of the magazine while designing several hundred Time covers.

I left Time in 1977 to found David Merrill Design and for the next 23 years designed more than 100 national and international publications for such publishers as CBS, Times Mirror, McGraw Hill, The Economist, Playboy, three magazines in Singapore, as well as many independents and start-up publications.

In August 2001 I returned to Utah and began my fourth career as a landscape painter. I studied for a year with Bonnie Posselli and participated in two co-op galleries in Park City. At this writing I am represented by Phillips Gallery in Salt Lake City and Juniper Sky Fine Arts Gallery at Kayenta near St. George. In October of 2005 I opened David Merrill Gallery & Studio at 333 Main Street in Park City, three months before my diagnosis. To date I have sold more than 200 paintings all together.

Along with my diagnosis I was advised that many people in my situation quit their jobs and travel. I love my job and I’ve seen much of the world. I chose to keep painting and keep my gallery open as long as possible.

My life has been full of successes and failures and spiced with some lucky breaks. It has always been exciting. I’ve enjoyed most of it and regret that there won’t be more.

I’ve made many friends, more than I realized, in my five years in Park City. I appreciate all who have provided help and encouragement. I’ve been hugged more recently than during the rest of my life.

Thanks to my friends made during my 36 years in New York for the calls, e-mails and offers of help, and to my cousins Steve Kirts and Mike Wilkinson here in Utah, and to my son Nick and especially my mother who has always been my biggest supporter.

In lieu of flowers please donate for cancer research to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021