Sculptor, born in Woolloomooloo, Sydney, Australia. He began his career in classical ballet, and by the age of 16 was principal dancer with Melbourne’s Borovansky Ballet. He moved to Britain in 1956, branched out from the classical repertoire and took on roles in the West End, in television shows and in films. While appearing in ‘Showboat’ at London’s Adelphi Theatre in the early 1970s, he began drawing his fellow dancers and was invited to show them in an exhibition devoted to dancing at a West End gallery. Merrifield later recalled that, on expressing his disappointment at another exhibitor’s sculptures of dancers, the gallery owner told him that if he could do better, he would show his works instead. Over the next two weeks, using clay modelled on armatures made of wire coat hangers, he produced some small bronzes which duly won a place in the exhibition. He considered his lack of formal training no impediment to his being able to model the human figure: ‘As a dancer I just know where the muscles ought to be and how the head should be angled. As I work at a figure, I can feel myself doing the dancing.’ At about this time a cartilage operation made dancing painful and he took up sculpture full time. He rigged up a ballet barre and mirror in his house in Hampstead and invited dancers to exercise there while he drew them. Collectors, particularly those with a passion for dancing, began acquiring his work, and ultimately he was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. He produced sculptures of some of the world’s most famous dancers, including Dame Alicia Markova, Dame Beryl Grey, Anton Dolin, Sir Anthony Dowell, Thomas Edur and Wayne Sleep. Following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Merrifield was commissioned by the British Red Cross to produce a portrait bust of her for their headquarters in London. His public sculptures include Spartacus, outside the Chichester Festival Theatre, West Sussex (1984); Anna Pavlova as Dragonfly, on the Pavlova Walk, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia (1988); Solitaire, Compton Acres, Poole, Dorset (1990); Poppy, outside The Anvil, Churchill Way, Basingstoke, Hampshire (1996); and John Gilpin as Spectre de la Rose, outside the Epsom Playhouse, Surrey (1999).
Bibliography: D. Buckman, Artists in Britain since 1945 (2 vols: A–L, M–Z), Bristol, 2006; Tom Merrifield website; J. Seddon et al, Public Sculpture of Sussex, Liverpool, 2014, pp. 109–10; The Telegraph (online edn), 13 December 2021 (obituary).
Terry Cavanagh, April 2025