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Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Untitled (Boy Making Gesture) [Michael and Christopher]

1959/1974

$5,555
£4,212.35
€4,873.88
CA$7,852.19
A$8,753.69
CHF 4,565.41
MX$105,852.38
NOK 57,389.42
SEK 54,301.86
DKK 36,378.56

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 inches, image 15 x 12 inches, mount This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “In the 1950s few photographers, particularly men, chose their models from their own families. Meatyard, however, found inspiration in his three offspring. This was perhaps due to his interest in Ben Shahn’s postwar paintings of Italian children playing among the ruins of war; the dolls, puppets, and children in Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry; and the dwarves, elves, and hobbits of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasies. But he did not emphasize their innocence. Instead, he cultivated their uninhibited nature, unpredictable gestures, and natural acting abilities. The weathered rural architecture provides the kind of abstract elements—the horizontal slats of wood against the strong verticals of the barn-like structure—that Meatyard preferred as context for his figures.” —Judith Keller, Ralph Eugene Meatyard (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002), pp. 34-35 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.

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Untitled (Boy with Flag) [Christopher and the Rebuilding of America]
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 6.75 x 6.75 inches, image 15 x 12 inches, mount This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “This photograph is found in the portrait section of the Time-Life publication "Photographing Children...
Category

Late 20th Century American Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

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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

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

Cranston Richie
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. “This image probably owes some of its inspiration to the abnormal characters in the stories of Flannery O’Connor’s 1955 collection, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." But Meatyard was also looking at Giorgio de Chirico and the European Surrealists and here employs their penchant for the lifeless mannequin figure. A headless dressmaker’s dummy...
Category

Late 20th Century American Modern Portrait 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

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

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