About

Merrill Mason works in multiple media including photography, textiles, and poetry. Currently she is working on a quilt using Charles Darwin’s manuscripts of On the Origin of Species. She is also creating a series of color photographs about the wonder found in everyday life.

Merrill lives in Philadelphia. She studied at Yale and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is Museum Director Emerita at the American Philosophical Society (APS) in Philadelphia.

The 13 million manuscripts and other objects in the APS collections inspire her studio practice, especially works by 18th century natural historians. The APS has the second largest collection of Darwin’s manuscripts. https://www.amphilsoc.org/