(Normal, Illinois, 1925 - 1972, Lexington, Kentucky)
c. 1967-1971
Gelatin silver print
7 1/2 x 7 3/4 in. (19.1 x 19.8 cm)
Collection of the Akron Art Museum
Gift of Diane and Christopher Meatyard
1992.26
© The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard
In 1967, Meatyard's friend, the poet and environmentalist Wendell Berry, invited him to collaborate on a book that would convey the essence and importance of the Red River Gorge, a Kentucky wilderness area slated for flooding by the U.S. Corps of Engineers. Berry's essay and Meatyard's photographs, published together in a 1971 book called 'The Unforseen Wilderness', certainly contributed to the successful campaign to save the gorge. Meatyard's photographs show not an idyllic landscape but instead present varied faces of nature - light and darkness, beauty and awesome force.