Merrilyn Duzy

Merrilyn Duzy is an American artist, lecturer, and instructor in Art Studies whose work has been exhibited worldwide. A founder of the West Florida Chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art and past-President of the Southern California chapter, she is widely regarded for her series on Women’s Place in Art History and for her work celebrating female eroticism.

Born in 1946, Duzy grew up in Southern California. Her Catholic upbringing sparked an interest in religious art, and an illustrated family Bible, depicting saints in bondage and ecstasy engendered her life-long fascination with the spiritual side of eroticism. In the 1970s, she curated a number of controversial exhibitions including “Erotic Visions” in Westwood, California—the first such exhibit of women’s erotic art on the west coast.
Inspired by the feminist art movement, Duzy realized that women’s place in Art History was greatly under-represented. In 1982 she created her illustrated lecture, “Walking Through History: Women Artists Past and Present” which she has presented in the United States, Israel, and Asia.

In the early 1980s, she produced her most important and unique series of oil paintings, Women Artists in History. Thirty artists are represented, beginning wit...

Master of Fine Arts, Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, 1988
Bachelor of Arts, California State University, Northridge, 1974
Private study Vern Wilson, Los Angeles, 1976-1982
Santa Reparata International School of Art, Florence, Italy
Additional art and computer studies at Moorpark College, Pierce College, Los Angeles Valley College

Solo and group exhibit across the United States, Asia, Mexico, Israel, Poland, and Canada.
Exhibited in the International Museum of Erotic Art, San Francisco.
Member of the "Group Nine," a collaborative artist collective.