A largely self-taught photographer, Ralph Eugene Meatyard (American, 1925–1972) was a pioneering and inventive artist who created some of the most original images of the mid-twentieth century. His work defies easy categorization as he experimented across various genres and subjects, and throughout his career, he maintained the ethos of an amateur, approaching photography with a sense of affection, discovery, and surprise. He is best known for his staged scenes that suggest an absurd fantasy set in the dilapidated houses and banal suburban environments near his home in Lexington, Kentucky. These scenes, often featuring his family as actors and using props such as masks and dolls, reveal Meatyard’s search for inner truths amid the ordinary.
This exhibition, currently at The High Museum in Atlanta and coinciding with the artist’s centenary, features thirty-six prints that comprise the artist’s first monograph (Gnomon Press, 1970)—one of only two books he published during his lifetime. Meatyard intended this collection to stand as his definitive artistic statement. Through his idiosyncratic selection of images, the exhibition explores how Meatyard’s unique approach and voracious curiosity expanded photography’s expressive and conceptual potential.
