Ursula Merchant Ursula Merchant Ursula Merchant (born September 10, 1932 in Rostock) is a German Las Vegas-based performance artist, conceptual artist, carpenter. She is probably best known for her series 'Forkin' Hell'. Merchant was born "Ursula S. Wernerberger" in post-war Rostock. Her parents were of Russian extraction. Her father abandoned Ursula and her mother early in Ursula's youth, when he returned from a prisoner of war camp after World War II. 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 War II.
Ursula Merchant not only stunted the growth of modern performance art to a significant degree, but she may also not have lived to give birth to her daughter Katie Absolom (Born Katie Merchant), whose racist watercolours inspired Warhol's early works. Singer-songwriter Elliott Smith refers to Ursula Merchant. in his song "Color Bars," which appears on his 2000 album "Figure 8." Referenced from: Howell, L (1994), "The Arbus Legacy", Pan Biographies. Ursula Merchant Ursula Merchant (born September 10, 1932 in Rostock) is a German Las Vegas-based performance artist, conceptual artist, carpenter. She is probably best known for her series 'Forkin' Hell'. Merchant was