Sarah Edwards on the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, whose Southern-gothic work will soon be on display at the Fraenkel Gallery, in San Francisco.
Meatyard’s use of masks, shadows, abandoned houses, and figures in motion open up a deep and multi-layered place of feeling that we have yet to fully address.
Sarah Edwards on the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, whose Southern-gothic work will soon be on display at the Fraenkel Gallery, in San Francisco.
Williams wrote me that there was a photographer there who took pictures of children and American flags in attics. Excerpt from The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays By Guy Davenport When I moved to Lexington in 1964 the poet Jonathan Williams wrote me that there was a photograph
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ClampArt represents a wide range of emerging and mid-career artists of all media with a specialization in photography.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925-1972) spent three months looking through an unfocused camera in order to "learn to see No-Focus." By Rebekah Modrak, Bill Anthes, excerpt from Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice, 2011 Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925-1972) spent three months looking through an unfo
Sarah Edwards on the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, whose Southern-gothic work will soon be on display at the Fraenkel Gallery, in San Francisco.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925-1972) was an American optometrist and pioneer of experimental and surreal photography, working in Kentucky. Heavily influenced by Southern Gothic literature, his carefully constructed, haunting images are on display at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans until January 2023
How to explain my enduring attachment to the peculiar and eccentric photographs of Ralph Eugene Meatyard? Could it be that I came across them early in my study of photography and art, so that they are embedded in the foundation of knowledge that was built upon over a lifetime?…
Save for his unusual name, Ralph Eugene Meatyard had all the trappings of an ordinary man.
Capturing the unseen has been a taking-off point for photographic ambition since the medium’s inception. Ephemeral moments, underlying truths, an
ASX CHANNEL: RALPH EUGENE MEATYARD
Sarah Edwards on the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, whose Southern-gothic work will soon be on display at the Fraenkel Gallery, in San Francisco.
From a portfolio of ten gelatin silver prints from original Meatyard negatives (1959-71) Printed April 1974 Edition of 130 Credit stamp, verso 7 x 7 inches, image 15 x 12 inches, mount This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “Meatyard searched continually for a non-objective art that would be wordless poetry, spontaneous music without sound. The ‘Motion-Sound’ pictures of his later years brought Meatyard’s passion for music and, paradoxically, the silence of Zen Buddhism together in photography. In creating the series, he focused the camera on a natural scene (or one containing plain rural architecture) and then moved it slightly. The result of this action is an image that suggests sound while abstracting natural forms. The landscapes of the ‘Motion-Sound’ series are in stark contrast to the evocative, more traditional views of the Red River Gorge that Meatyard was executing during the same years.” —Judith Keller, Ralph Eugene Meatyard (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002), p. 122 An optician by trade, Ralph Eugene Meatyard was a self-described “dedicated amateur” photographer. He pursued his own vision to produce an exquisitely enigmatic, widely admired body of work. Meatyard began taking photographs in 1950, roaming the backwoods and towns in Kentucky, experimenting with framing, multiple exposures, and blurring to produce haunting, abstracted images of natural and manmade environments. In the late 1950s, he began incorporating monstrous, oversized latex masks and hands into his photographs, in addition to plastic dolls. His family and friends were the protagonists in his carefully composed scenes. For Meatyard, who was inspired by literature, Zen Buddhism, and jazz, the masks served to equalize his subjects and shift focus elsewhere—to the poignant juxtaposition of otherworldly faces on human bodies, to the ambiguous and unknowable in human nature.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he made his living as an optician while creating an impressive and enigmatic body of photographs. Meatyard’s creative circle included mystics and poets, such as Thomas Merton and Guy Davenport, as well as the photographers Cranston Ritchie and Van Deren Coke, who were mentors and fellow members […]
Meatyard’s use of masks, shadows, abandoned houses, and figures in motion open up a deep and multi-layered place of feeling that we have yet to fully address.
I came across these presh potskins pieces of art and photography a few weeks ago, and I have been trying to find a place where someone sells them, or something because I am literally obsessed with them, and I don't know why. Maybe they just scream "Dark & Twisty" to me. Here are a few: Yes, it all does exclaim "Dark & Twisty". Which is great.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s eerie, gorgeous portraits of children walk a line between sentimental and gothic.
Explore the artists and artworks of our time at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
"Billboards in any art are the first things that one sees—the masks might be interpreted as billboards. Once you get past the billboard then you can see into the past (forest, etc.), the present, & the future. I feel that because of the “strange” that more attention is paid to backgrounds &
Sarah Edwards on the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, whose Southern-gothic work will soon be on display at the Fraenkel Gallery, in San Francisco.
Born in Illinois, Meatyard attended Williams College on the Navy V-12 program. He became a licensed optician in 1949 after working for Dow Optical in Chicago. Moved to Lexington, Kentucky, for an optician job, became interested in photography, and sought out Van Deren Coke as a teacher/mentor; bought twin lens reflex in 1950. He also studied with Minor White but thought of himself as a "primitive" photographer. Meatyard’s photographic work is primarily square, black and white images of children and anonymous figures wearing Halloween masks in rural fields, abandoned structures, or barns. He often experimented with movement of one or more human subjects producing enigmatic blurred features. The work creates macabre overtones with doll images and nightmare juxtapositions of innocence (children) and potential danger. Many critics have attributed visual elements in Meatyard’s photographs to metaphors for death and decay. He was influenced by literary sources and his final theme, before an untimely death, was The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater (published posthumously in 1974). Characters and scenes in this series are taken somewhat literally from a Gertrude Stein story of a Southern lady. Meatyard’s work appeared in print in the early 1970s just as university art programs in the United States began to experience a growing trend in creative photography; this, and the appeal of a psychological dimension, may explain the longevity of this man’s influence. (Author: Ken White - Rochester Institute of Technology) www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/Ralph_Eugene__Meat...
I came across these presh potskins pieces of art and photography a few weeks ago, and I have been trying to find a place where someone sells them, or something because I am literally obsessed with them, and I don't know why. Maybe they just scream "Dark & Twisty" to me. Here are a few: Yes, it all does exclaim "Dark & Twisty". Which is great.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he made his living as an optician while creating an impressive and enigmatic body of photographs. Meatyard’s creative circle included mystics and poets, such as Thomas Merton and Guy Davenport, as well as the photographers Cranston Ritchie and Van Deren Coke, who were mentors and fellow members […]
Photographe autodidacte et opticien de métier, l’Américain Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925 - 1972) achète son premier appareil en 1950 pour s’en servir dans
An exhibition of the sort that hereabouts only the Fraenkel Gallery would attempt brings...
Ralph Eugene Meatyard lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he made his living as an optician while creating an impressive and enigmatic body of photographs. Meatyard’s creative circle included mystics and poets, such as Thomas Merton and Guy Davenport, as well as the photographers Cranston Ritchie and Van Deren Coke, who were mentors and fellow members […]
Sarah Edwards on the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, whose Southern-gothic work will soon be on display at the Fraenkel Gallery, in San Francisco.
