Background
Merchant was born Ursula S. Wernerberger in post-war Rostock. Her father abandoned Ursula and her mother early in Ursula"s youth, when he returned from a prisoner of war camp after World World War World War II
Merchant was born Ursula S. Wernerberger in post-war Rostock. Her father abandoned Ursula and her mother early in Ursula"s youth, when he returned from a prisoner of war camp after World World War World War II
Chelsea College of Art and Design.
She is probably best known for her series "Forkin" Hell". Her parents were of Russian extraction. Her family moved to a remote village in the Black Mountains of Switzerland after the house next to theirs was destroyed during the bombing at the close of World World War World War II When she was 12, she and her family moved back to Rostock and shared an apartment with Mikhail Trotsky in Elisabethkleverstraße in Rostock.
Mikhail Trotsky at the time was a former Russian peasant exile who was quick to recognise and encourage Ursula"s artistic potential.
About this, Merchant recalled, "I knew at that moment that I had found my "Innere Gedanken", my inner most desire, I immediately knew I would be an artist and that I would do art performances". The same year, the prodigious Merchant was to start work on "Mein Liebling roter Schuh für regnerische Tage" in what was to become a hit play.
In the early 1960s Merchant worked night shifts as a carpenter in a timber factory to help fund her first works of art 1932 – Born in Rostock, Germany.
1948-1953 – Studied at the Sorbonne, Paris, France.
1953-1954 – Brief excursion to London, England, where she learned English and met Lucian Freud 1962 – Emigrated to Las Vegas, United States of America.