Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Untitled (Mask in Water)

1961/1974

$4,500
£3,416.32
€3,907.55
CA$6,287.15
A$6,992.69
CHF 3,651.36
MX$85,093.55
NOK 46,633.48
SEK 43,733.98
DKK 29,163.51
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

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 7.5 inches, image 15 x 12 inches, mount This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. 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.

More From This Seller

View All
Romance of Ambrose Bierce #3 [Romance (N.) from Ambrose Bierce #3]
By Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Located in New York, NY
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 7.5 inches, image 15 x 12 inches, mount This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “Meatyard took his definition of romance from The Devil’s Dictionary (1911) compiled by American writer Ambrose Bierce from the satirical pieces he published weekly in the late nineteenth century. The American grotesque of Bierce’s tall tales is here combined with Meatyard’s Surrealist inclinations and the European, particularly French, interest in primitive masks, perhaps with the intention of creating a parody of high art. Rather than sports fans, the stadium benches...
Category

Late 20th Century American Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Lucybelle Crater and her 15 year old son's friend
By Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Located in New York, NY
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 photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. 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...
Category

1970s American Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled (Figure and Boat)
By Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Located in New York, NY
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 photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. 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...
Category

Late 20th Century American Modern Figurative Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled ("Motion-Sound" Landscape)
By Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Located in New York, NY
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...
Category

Late 20th Century Post-Modern Landscape Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled (Figure and Wall Detail)
By Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Located in New York, NY
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 7.5 inches, image 15 x 12 inches, mount This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. 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...
Category

Late 20th Century American Modern Figurative Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Madonna
By Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Located in New York, NY
From a portfolio of ten gelatin silver prints from original Meatyard negatives (1959-71) Printed April 1974 Edition of 130 Credit stamp, verso 6.5 x 7 inches, image 15 x 12 inches, mount This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “Madelyn Meatyard was an indulgent model. The role her husband usually chose for her was that of mother, posing with one or more of her three children. Here, he stations her before an arched window. The pious atmosphere created by this framing is contradicted by Madelyn’s everyday dress and by the dilapidated Venetian blinds behind her. Unlike a traditional religious icon, this Madonna gazes sternly into space, while her small child stands facing the maternal loins from which she sprang. Many photographers prior to Meatyard—such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edwards Weston and Harry Callahan—had produced series based on their beguiling wives.” —Judith Keller, Ralph Eugene Meatyard (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002), pp. 86-87 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...
Category

Late 20th Century American Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

You May Also Like

Untitled, 1960s - Kati Horna (Black and White Photography) Surrealist
By Kati Horna
Located in London, GB
Kati Horna Untitled, 1960s Signed and stamped with artist's copyright ink stamp on reverse Silver gelatin print, printed later 8 x 10 inches Kati Horna (1912-2000) was born Katalin ...
Category

Early 20th Century Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, 'Dolls and Masks'
By Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Located in Sharon, CT
First Edition, First Printing. Limited Edition to 30 copies with contemporary gelatin silver print "Untitled 1962", signed and numbered from the Artist's Estate by Christopher Meatya...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary American Expressionist Photography

Materials

Paper

Mask In The Tub
By Melissa Meier
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Acrylic mounted photograph.
Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Color

Mask In The Tub
$2,400 Sale Price
20% Off
Untitled, from the series 'Fear Dolls', c. 1939 - Kati Horna (B&W Photography)
By Kati Horna
Located in London, GB
Kati Horna Untitled, from the series 'Fear Dolls', c. 1939 Signed and stamped with artist's copyright ink stamp on reverse Silver gelatin print, printed later 6 1/2 x 9 3/4 inches K...
Category

Early 20th Century Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Floating Bust, Brazil, 1997
By Barnaby Hall
Located in Hudson, NY
ABOUT After 30 years of only exhibiting fine art photography, the Robin Rice Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition featuring a selection of her gallery photographers and three visual artists new to the space: Erica Hauser, and Matt Kinney. The selected works of these well-established Beacon, NY artists blend with the gallery’s fine art photography. Upon entering the gallery, viewers will encounter figurative sculptures, abstract paintings, and ink wash drawings alongside fine art photography. Since Robin Rice’s move to Beacon, NY, this concept developed organically; the group exhibition is a fusion of artistic mediums inspired by chance encounters between Rice and friends at art events in Beacon. After spending time with creatives who've spent lockdown in studios, Rice carefully chose works most apropos with her edited inventory of framed photography. Through these chance encounters Rice found inspiration to create this exhibition unlike anything seen before at the gallery and curated an immersive experience. Maintaining her expert aesthetic, Rice has brought together a mosaic of mediums that seamlessly fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Kinney's collection of ink wash paintings in Japanese Sumi ink and watercolor paintings on hand-torn paper render fleeting glimpses of figures and animals as well as primal symbols. Tasmania Spiral is a hypnotic work that resembles a gyre. Also in focus is Hauser’s collection of abstract paintings featuring an alluring vintage color palette...
Category

2010s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Frog Princess I
By Karin Rosenthal
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel for our multi-faceted but brie...
Category

1980s Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin