Award-winning Chicago painter, Nancie King Mertz has work in corporate and private collections worldwide.
 
In 2014 she was named a Master Pastelist in 3 international pastel organizations:  Pastel Society of America, Chicago Pastel Society and International Association of Pastel Societies. 
Her painting is on the cover of the Feb. 2015 Pastel Journal, which also features a 7 page article on her work.  Several magazines have chosen her paintings as "best-of" over the years.

She was twice named “Artist of the Year” by the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau, and her work is featured on many Chicago-based television shows including "The Good Wife" & "Chicago Fire".  She is a  a member of Oil Painters of America,  Pastel Society of America, Chicago Plein Air Painters, Chicago Pastel Painters, Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, Degas Pastel Society, Int'l Assoc. of Pastel Societies, and American Impressionists Society.

Ms Mertz has a Masters degree in Painting from Eastern IL University where she taught for 3 years. Her BFA in Painting is from the Urbana campus of the University of IL, where she was a James Scholar.

Producing 100 paintings annually, Nancie’s work varies in theme from urban to landscape, figurative to interior, much of it painted on-site.  She has traveled to over 20 countries to paint plein air and has offered more than 60 one-person shows of her “destination” work since 1988.  Her work has won awards in several international gallery & magazine competitions and she has been invited to paint in, and jury, plein air competitions across the US.  In 2011 she was an Artist-In-Residence for the National Park System

While a graduate painting student, Nancie began a framing company downstate which she transferred to Chicago in 1987.  The framing business grew into a gallery where she & her husband, Ron, offer Giclée prints of her work along with her originals & framing.  ArtDeTriumph & Artful Framer Studios has won 3 prestigious awards in Chicago:  Woman Entrepreneur of 1999, Small Business of 2000, and Business Person of 2008.  Nancie was named a Distinguished Alum by the Graduate School of EIU, where she sits on the Graduate Advisory Board, and was recently named a Charter Member of the Hall of Fame by her high school in Arcola, IL.  She serves on various art & philanthropic boards in Chicago.