Helen Bigelow Merriman

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Helen Bigelow Merriman (1844–1933) was a painter, art collector, and a founder of the Worcester Art Museum. She donated many works to the museum and wrote books about art and spirituality.

She was the only child of Erastus Brigham Bigelow, who invented weaving machinery and started the Bigelow Carpet Company. She grew up on a large estate and working farm in North Conway, New Hampshire. Their family home, Stonehurst Manor, was later used as a summer residence and is now a hotel. Merriman also helped found Memorial Hospital in North Conway by providing land and money.

In 1874 she married Rev. Daniel Merriman, and they had a son, Roger Bigelow Merriman, who became a historian. The family moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1878, where her husband served as pastor of the Central Congregational Church.

In Worcester, Merriman was active in the local art scene. She gave lectures and lent works from her collection to the Worcester Art Society and the Worcester Art Students Club, where some of her paintings were shown. She and her husband helped found the Worcester Art Museum, giving a large donation and serving as trustees and board members. She also worked on educational programs for the museum and helped bring Boston Impressionist Philip Leslie Hale to oversee its studio art courses.

Merriman led the museum’s early efforts to build a strong collection. She lent and donated works by artists such as Pierre Subleyras, Paulus Moreelse, Edmund Tarbell, and Arthur B. Davies. She supported women artists and helped the museum acquire or display works by Sarah Wyman Whitman and Cecilia Beaux. She stepped down from her museum roles in 1922–23. By the time of her death, the Worcester Art Museum was a respected institution thanks in large part to her early work.

She wrote several books about art and spirituality, including What Shall Make Us Whole? (1888), The Perfect Lord (1891), Concerning Portraits and Portraiture (1891), and Religio Pictoris (1899). Religio Pictoris explores how art and religion are connected and argues for a unity between the material and spiritual sides of life. In Concerning Portraits and Portraiture, she discusses the working process of artist Abbott Thayer, who had painted her portrait the year before.

Her portrait of her friend Sarah Wyman Whitman is now in the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute. Merriman donated land and money to found Memorial Hospital in North Conway in 1911, and she also served as president of the North Conway Public Library.