The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

MERTON'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH:
Meatyard, Ralph Eugene, 1925-1972

Click here to exit print-formated view.

Descriptive Summary

Record Group: Section A - Correspondence

Dates of materials: 1967-1968, 1972

Volume: 9 item(s); 10 pg(s)

Scope and Content

Biography

Ralph Eugene Meatyard was a optician by trade in Lexington, Kentucky, but was an avid photographer who would become influential in the art photography world for his haunting and surreal images. He first met Merton in January of 1967 on a trip from Lexington with poet Jonathan Williams and Guy Davenport (see Merton's journal entry from January 18, 1967). Meatyard took some photographs of Merton playing bongos, standing with a staff in a corn field, in his hermitage, in his habit but with a baseball cap, etc. In some of the last years of his life before dieing of cancer, he collaborating with another friend of Merton's, Kentucky author Wendell Berry. Meatyard's photographs are part of the collections at the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art, and the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

Usage Guidelines and Restrictions

Related Information and Links

Other Finding Aids

If the person in correspondence with Merton has full text records in the Merton Center Digital Collections, there will be a numeric link to them below.
   

Series List

This Record Sub-Group is not divided into Series and is arranged chronologically.

Container List

SeriesDateTypeTo/FromFirst LinesPubFull TextNotes
 1967/04/25 HLS[x]to Laughlin, JamesTom Merton asked me to send these prints to you. They are his three favorites of the recent pictures   
 1967/05/26 TL[x]from Laughlin, JamesThank you so much for letting me see the pictures which you took of Father Merton.  rejection of photos for cover of <i>Selected Poems</i>
 1967/08/12 HLSfrom MertonReturned just this week from 3½ wks vacation and travel through the East and North.   
 1967/08/15 TL[c]from MertonIt was goodto [sic] get your letter, to know you had had a good vacation, that the new store was   
 1967/no/no? HLSto MertonThanks so much for time last, most edifying. We were at Guys Saturday and he is still somewhat   
 1968/06/17 HLSto MertonThanks for nice issue of Monks Pond - looks real great! Assume that you have been working mightily.   
 1968/06/23 TL[c]from MertonI've been one very busy and overvisited monk lately and I must admit I totally forgot about   
 1972/07/07 HLS[x]to Center from Meatyard, MadelynThank you for your kind letter of June 14. I am sorry it has taken me so long to reply.   
 1972/08/25 TL[x]from Center to Meatyard, MadelynThank you for your consent for the use of Gene's excellent Merton photographs. We will make every   
        

    The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University | 2001 Newburg Rd, Louisville KY, 40205 | 502-272-8187

    Copyright © The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. All rights reserved.