Merle Greene Robertson

Place: Miles City

Born: 1913

Death: 2011

Biography:

Merle Greene Robertson was an American artist, art historian, archaeologist, lecturer and Mayanist researcher, renowned for her extensive work towards the investigation and preservation of the art, iconography, and writing of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Central America. She is most famous for her rubbings of Maya carved stelae, sculpture, and carved stone, particularly at the Maya sites of Tikal and Palenque. Robertson was born in Miles City, Montana in 1913. She was interested in Native American culture and learned Indian sign language from Blackfoot Indian chiefs. She met the artist Charles Marion Russell who taught her painting. She moved to Seattle, Washington and completed high school there. She attended the University of Washington. She started working as a commercial artist and gold leaf window painter; during the summers she worked at Camp Tapawingo. She became an expert in Mayan art and iconography and worked at the site of Palenque for many years. She died in San Francisco in 2011.