Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925–1972) was an American photographer and optician who lived and worked in Lexington, Kentucky for the majority of his career, where he was also a member of the Lexington Camera Club. Blur and enigma—achieved by the use of motion, multiple exposures, and other methods of abstraction—are hallmarks of Meatyard’s black-and-white images, the results often ghostly and surreal. One of his most notable series, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater, contains cryptic double portraits of friends and family members wearing masks and enacting symbolic dramas. Despite his distinct aesthetic, Meatyard’s photography was not more widely known until after his death.
Recent exhibitions of his work include the Art Institute of Chicago; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the International Center of Photography (New York); the Cincinnati Museum of Art; the Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX), and more. Today, his photographs are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York); the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), among others.