The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater.

And Other Figurative Photographs.

Photographs by Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Text by James Rhem.

Distributed Art Publishers, New York, 2001. 128 pp., 100 duotone illustrations, 9¼x10¼".

Originally published in 1974 by the Jargon Society and long out of print, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater is the best-known body of Ralph Eugene Meatyard's work. At once comic and tragic, grotesque and beautiful, the series of 64 images features his wife, Madelyn, in a hag's Halloween mask together in each with a different friend or relative in a transparent mask. Original copies of this small but seminal work now sell for upwards of $5oo.oo. Critic and scholar James Rhem has worked closely with the archives in the photographer's estate, as well as directly with his surviving family members to reconstruct Meatyard's original and unrealized, intentions for the publication of this project. As a result, the revised edition will feature the correct sequencing of images and, most importantly, the missing captions, which, in accordance with Meatyard's instructions, will be reproduced in his own handwriting as white type knocked out of a black background. In addition, each surviving participant in the Lucybelle Crater project has been interviewed by Rhem, and the book will include a critical essay and extensive background information. Accompanying the Album will be 40 more figurative works establishing a context for it and exploring important themes in Meatyard's work. This is an important rediscovery in the history of American photography.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard was born in 1925 and lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he was part of circle that included the likes of Thomas Merton Guy Davenport, and Jonathan Williams. Major influences on his photographic work were Aaron Siskind and Minor White, with whom he studied. He died in 1972. Critic James Rhem's writings haw appeared in The New Art Examiner, The Capital Times, and Newsday, and he has contributed pieces to NPR's All Things Considered and The Sunday Show. He has lectured widely at several universities throughout the United States and he is the author of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, a French language Photo Poche monograph published by Edition Nathan in 2000.
"Originally published in 1974 by the Jargon Society and long out of print, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater is the best-known body of Ralph Eugene Meatyard's work. At once comic and tragic, grotesque and beautiful, the series of 64 images features his wife, Madelyn, in a hag's Halloween mask together in each with a different friend or relative in a transparent mask...Critic and scholar James Rhem has worked closely with the archives in the photographer's estate, as well as directly with his surviving family members to reconstruct Meatyard's original, and unrealized, intentions for the publication of this project. As a result, the revised edition will feature the correct sequencing of images and, most importantly, the missing captions, which, in accordance with Meatyard's instructions, will be reproduced in his own handwriting as white type knocked out of a black background. In addition, each surviving participant in the Lucybelle Crater project has been interviewed by Rhem, and the book will include a critical essay and extensive background information. Accompanying the Album will be 40 more figurative works establishing a context for it and exploring important themes in Meatyard's work. This is an important rediscovery in the history of American photography."-the publisher.

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