Thomas K. Meyer is a well-known and much respected Los Angeles photographer and artist who in fact has not had much national or international recognition or attention. For years he was, until his retirement in 2004, Creative Director for the Cultural Affairs Department of Los Angeles, where, among other duties, he created publicity brochures, posters and announcements for events at the municipal art galleries and historic heritage sites, like Barnsdall Park, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, and Watts Towers. I have known him and his work for over forty years, as he was also the friend of my lifelong best friend, the artist David Prior, of Walnut Creek, who died unexpectedly in 1998.
Tom is famous among his friends, acquaintances, and colleagues for his photographic postcards, which he has been sending out all over the United States and the world for many years. He started this lifelong project many years ago whereby, in addition to taking and sending out photo postcards he makes himself, on which he writes humorous and clever greetings and observations, he also keeps accurate journals and records of every photograph he has taken and the people to whom he has sent them. He loves Los Angeles and Hollywood in particular, where he lives, and knows more about the city and its secret and intimate landmarks and byways than anyone I know. In addition to the many photographs he has taken of Los Angeles and environs over the years, he has also painted intimate and beautiful watercolors of his favorite sites and special locales.
Like many artists, Tom has had an unusual and “checkered” career. He attended St. Ambrose University at Davenport, Iowa, where he studied under Father Edward M. Catich, the famous American Roman Catholic priest, teacher, scholar, calligrapher, and master of the alphabet and letters, including unparalleled craftsmanship in stone lettering and carving. Catich’s renowned books, Letters Redrawn from the Trajan Inscription in Rome(1961) and The Origin of the Serif: Brush Writing and Roman Letters (1968) are still acknowledged classic studies in the field; and his writing samples and calligraphy are unmatched. Tom in fact first came to Los Angeles at the invitation of Catich to be his apprentice stone carver to help him carve the names of the donors on the donor’s wall of the old Los Angeles County Museum. Tom eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he attended Long Beach State College while he earned his living as a machinist.
Tom is also an aficionado and expert on palms, succulents and cacti, of which he has an excellent collection and unusual variety of specimens. What started out as a horticultural hobby, like everything Tom undertakes, soon became an engaging and absorbing activity where he soon became an acknowledged expert, equal to his unchallenged knowledge of music, which all his friends concede.
The current exhibition of some 25 photographs of palms and cars at the Future Studio Gallery in Los Angeles also started out as a casual project that combined two of Tom’s interests, as he states:
“I have been collecting palm trees for more than 30 years. Driving around Los Angeles, I am always watching for palm plantings. I am also interested in all the neat lookin’ cars parked on the streets of L.A. Therefore, when I see a hot car parked in front of a palm tree, I gotta stop and make a pic.”
These unique photographs of cars and palms in Los Angeles are all superb and expertly composed, some of them taken with infrared film and filter, which gives the light on the palm trees and cars a brilliant “snowy” effect, often blurring the objects and their outlines so that they flow together in an intriguing amalgam of nature and manmade machine. The compositions of the subjects of the photos are often humorous, like Holly Drive, April 1986, in which the car is deeply covered by a glowing palm in suffused light that makes it look as if the car is hiding or being hidden and protected by the palm. Or Cahuenga Boulevard, September 1996, a photo of a little Morris Minor pickup in front of a house with a palm that appears to be growing out of the back of the truck. Some of the vehicles in these photos are very unusual, as well as the palms, for example Rowena Avenue, August 2008, which includes an exotic electric car. At the opening of this show, which I attended—and which was very well attended— everyone was having a great time trying to identify the cars and palms. All of these black and white photographs illustrate Tom’s creative imagination, his humor, and masterful technique. This is an exhibition that no one should miss.
“Name the Car, Name the Palm”: Thomas K. Meyer Photographs at Future Studio Gallery, Los Angeles
July 9 – August 7, 2011
5558 N. Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 94002 (Highland Park)
323.254.4565
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