The Family Album Of Lucybelle Crater

Edited by James Rhem.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and held at the Art Institute of Chicago, July 2-Sept. 25, 2011; the De Young Museum, San Francisco, Oct. 8, 2011-Feb. 26, 2012, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, May 19-Aug. 5, 2012.

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 -- Publisher's website.