Brian Merrett
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Brian Jackson Merrett was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, July 28th, 1945. He is a Montreal-based fine-arts and architectural photographer.
In the mid '60s, after apprenticeship as an engineering and architectural draftsman, he visited the UK and began photographing in the documentary idiom of the time. Back in Canada, he returned to his drafting job and photographed industrial installations for his employer while pursuing correspondence studies in photography. In the late '60s Brian apprenticed at a commercial studio and began his photographic career. He found contract employment with the National Gallery of Canada and was consecutively commissioned to document the restoration of the 19th-century Head Office of the Bank of Montreal.
Brian Merrett's appreciation of buildings is the result of growing up the son of the Canadian architect John Campbell Merrett. This interest led to the documentation of threatened buildings in Montreal in the late 1960s, resulting in the saving and classification of some the city's key buildings. His work has been seen in many articles and books, including the two books which he co-authored in the 1980s. Brian was a founding director of Héritage Montréal. His client list includes private and corporate collectors in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto as well as major institutions such as The National Gallery of Canada, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The McMichael Collection, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, Le Musée du Québec.
In 1987 Meridian Press published Francois Remillard and Brian Merrett's book "Mansions of the Golden Square Mile Montreal 1850-1930" ISBN 2-920417-25-8, followed in 1990 by Remillard and Merrett's "Montreal Architecture: a Guide to Styles and Buildings" ISBN 2-920417-64-9.
He served as senior staff photographer at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from 1983 to 2001.
