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Occasion for Diriment

1962
Not on view
Ralph Eugene Meatyard was a photographer and optician who spent the last two decades of his life in Lexington, Kentucky, producing an eccentric body of work at some remove from the photographic mainstream. He often posed his family and friends in enigmatic tableaux with props such as dolls and rubber masks, imbuing his images with a haunting Surrealist sensibility. The curious title of this photograph stems from Meatyard's passion for odd names, puns, and peculiar words and phrases. Diriment is a made-up word, a Lewis Carroll-like compound of "dire" and "merriment" that suggests a mood of high-spirited fun and hilarity fraught with anxious undertones.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Occasion for Diriment
  • Artist: Ralph Eugene Meatyard (American, 1925–1972)
  • Date: 1962
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: 18.0 x 18.7 cm (7 1/16 x 7 3/8 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1967
  • Object Number: 67.543.29
  • Rights and Reproduction: © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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Lite #7, Ralph Eugene Meatyard American, Gelatin silver print
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Lite #18, Ralph Eugene Meatyard American, Gelatin silver print
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Untitled, Ralph Eugene Meatyard American, Gelatin silver print
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