Domino — Artist
(Donald Merrick)
Domino — the drawing name of Donald Merrick (1929–1990) — was a leather and BDSM erotic artist whose work captured, in his own words, “aggressive, ripe, dripping, wet, funky masculinity.” By day, Merrick was deputy chairman of the fine arts department at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Rutherford campus, a respected portraitist whose straight work was profiled in The New York Times; as Domino, working in the tradition of Tom of Finland, he channeled a lifelong fascination with iron miners, farmers, and soldiers from his Minnesota boyhood into raw, explicit ink drawings of cops, bikers, and working-class tops. His debut show, “Domino: Original Drawings and Prints,” opened at New York’s Stompers Gallery in December 1978 before traveling to San Francisco’s Fey Way Studios that spring.
Jack Fritscher’s definitive early profile of the artist — “Domino of New York Summer of ’78,” reported with A. Jay for Drummer No. 29 (May 1979) — remains the primary documented account of Domino’s life, influences, and process. Two decades later, Fritscher and Mark Hemry of Palm Drive Video produced Domino Video Gallery: Tough Tops Who Will Fuck You Up! (1999), a 60-minute documentary showcasing fifty of the artist’s drawings in close detail, created under a formal rights agreement with the Estate of Don Merrick. Both the Drummer interview and the Palm Drive Video documentary are cited as key sources by the Tom of Finland Foundation’s own retrospective gallery on Domino’s work and legacy.
“Domino of New York Summer of 1978” Drummer No 29 May 1979 (PDF)
Palm Drive Video
Domino Video Gallery:
Tough Tops Who Will Fuck You Up!
Further Reading