PHOTOGRAPHY MONOGRAPHS

Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Museum Exhibition Catalogues, Monographs, Artist's Projects, Curatorial Writings and Essays


MONOGRAPHS & CATALOGS

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: American Mystic
Ralph Eugene Meatyard: American Mystic
FRAENKEL GALLERY

Meatyard as self-taught visionary: a portrait of the photographer by acclaimed art historian Alexander Nemerov

Hbk, 11 x 9.5 in. / 110 pgs / 30 color / 48 bw. | 4/25/2017 | In stock
$45.00



Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Stages for Being
Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Stages for Being
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY ART MUSEUM

How Meatyard made a stage set of his native Kentucky to portray his circle of friends and compose his eerie tableaux

Hbk, 9.5 x 9.5 in. / 112 pgs / 50 color. | 3/19/2019 | In stock
$45.00



Ralph Eugene Meatyard: The Family Album Of Lucybelle Crater And Other Figurative Photographs
D.A.P./DISTRIBUTED ART PUBLISHERS

Hardcover, 10.25 x 9.25 in. / 128 pgs / 100 duotone. | 6/2/2002 | Not available
$45.00



Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Stages for BeingRalph Eugene Meatyard: Stages for Being

Published by University of Kentucky Art Museum.
Edited with text by Stuart Horodner, Janie M. Welker. Text by Roger Ballen, Julian Cox, Emmet Gowin, Marvin Heiferman, Corey Keller, Judy Linn, Christopher Meatyard, Duane Michals, Andrea Modica, Laurel Nakadate, Catherine Opie.

Stages for Being examines the photography that Ralph Eugene Meatyard created in and around Lexington, Kentucky, where he found abandoned houses in the countryside to use as sets, and directed friends and family members in scenes that suggest both ritual and theater. Establishing mood with natural lighting, he used masks, dolls and found objects as unsettling props and mined architectural detail for abstract compositional elements.

Meatyard culled inspiration from a wide variety of sources. An autodidact in areas as diverse as jazz, painting, literature, history and Zen Buddhism, his voracious reading sparked endless ideas for his carefully constructed photographs. His process was also informed by consistent dialogue with a robust group of Kentucky peers, including the writer, environmental activist and farmer Wendell Berry; photographers Van Deren Coke and Robert C. May; the Trappist monk Thomas Merton; the painter Frederic Thursz; and the writer, poet and philosopher Guy Davenport, all of whom worked in the region but were engaged with contemporary ideas and practice in their fields.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925–72) attended Williams College as part of the Navy's V12 program in World War II. Following the war, he married, became a licensed optician and moved to Lexington, Kentucky. When the first of his three children was born, Meatyard bought a camera to make pictures of the baby. Photography quickly became a consuming interest. He joined the Lexington Camera Club, where he met Van Deren Coke, under whose encouragement he soon developed into a powerfully original photographer. Meatyard's work is housed at the Museum of Modern Art, George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, the Smithsonian Institution and many other important collections.



PUBLISHER
University of Kentucky Art Museum

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.5 x 9.5 in. / 112 pgs / 50 color.

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D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2019 p. 76   

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ISBN 9781882007004 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CAD $62.00 GBP £40.00

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Ralph Eugene Meatyard: American MysticRalph Eugene Meatyard: American Mystic

Published by Fraenkel Gallery.
By Alexander Nemerov.

The legendary, mysterious photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925–72) lived in Lexington, Kentucky, working in a close-knit community of artists and writers while making his living as an optician. Ralph Eugene Meatyard: American Mystic, by esteemed art historian Alexander Nemerov, is a groundbreaking study of Meatyard’s work, creative thinking and sources of inspiration.

Given rare access to the personal library in which Meatyard had tellingly annotated works of fiction, poetry and other pages of personal significance, Nemerov examines the artist’s process of creating characters and staging dreamlike scenes. American Mystic also considers the artists and writers whose work influenced Meatyard, such as William Blake, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Thomas Merton.

Meatyard’s celebrated series The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater and many of his other photographs cast family members and friends in central roles, often masked and enacting symbolic dramas. Of these mystical works, Nemerov writes, “For Meatyard, a photograph is a careful or casual arrangement meant to produce a feeling it cannot name.”



PUBLISHER
Fraenkel Gallery

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 11 x 9.5 in. / 110 pgs / 30 color / 48 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2017 p. 127   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781881337447 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CAD $60.00 GBP £40.00

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In stock

in stock  $45.00


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UPS GROUND IN THE CONTINENTAL U.S.
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Ralph Eugene Meatyard: The Family Album Of Lucybelle Crater And Other Figurative PhotographsRalph Eugene Meatyard: The Family Album Of Lucybelle Crater And Other Figurative Photographs

Published by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers.
Edited by James Rhem.

Originally published in 1974 by the Jargon Society and long out of print, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater is the best-known body of Ralph Eugene Meatyard's work. At once comic and tragic, grotesque and beautiful, the series of 64 images features his wife, Madelyn, in a hag's Halloween mask together in each with a different friend or relative in a transparent mask. Original copies of this small but seminal work now sell for upwards of $500. Critic and scholar James Rhem has worked closely with the archives in the photographer's estate, as well as directly with his surviving family members to reconstruct Meatyard's original, and unrealized, intentions for the publication of this project. As a result, this revised edition features the correct sequencing of images and, most importantly, the missing captions, which, in accordance with Meatyard's instructions, are reproduced in his own handwriting as white type knocked out of a black background. In addition, each surviving participant in the Lucybelle Crater project has been interviewed by Rhem, and the book includes a critical essay and extensive background information. Accompanying the Album are 40 more figurative works establishing a context for it and exploring important themes in Meatyard's work. This is an important rediscovery in the history of American photography.

PUBLISHER
D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 10.25 x 9.25 in. / 128 pgs / 100 duotone.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2001 p. 38   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781891024290 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CAD $55.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

STATUS: Out of print | 00/00/00

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