Robert Meyer (photographer)

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Robert Meyer, Norwegian photographer and historian

Robert Meyer (born October 2, 1945 in Oslo ) is a Norwegian art photographer , professor , photo historian , collector , writer and publicist . His parents are the journalist Robert Castberg Meyer and the housewife Edel Nielsen. The industrial designer Terje Meyer is the photographer's brother.

biography

Meyer was hired as a photographer by the Norwegian Criminal Police ("Kripos") in Oslo in 1963. At the same time he worked as a photo journalist for the Norwegian newspaper "Vårt Land" and freelance for the "Weekly Press".

A year later he moved to Stockholm to attend the local university under the supervision of the artist Christer Strömholm to photography study . In the following five years he worked as a freelancer in Stockholm, Oslo and Buenos Aires . In 1967 Meyer returned to Oslo and worked from 1971 to 1978 for the magazine of the state broadcaster Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK) as a photojournalist and member of the editorial board. In 1976 he founded the publishing house Ikaros, which published the "Norwegian Photohistorical Journal" in addition to non-fiction books on photography and historically important facsimiles .

Meyer ended his professional career as a photographer a year later and focused on researching the national and international history of photography. From 1976 to 1980 he was an advisory council member of the British publishing group Taylor & Francis , which dealt with the history of photography. He was then an art critic for the leading daily newspaper Aftenposten for 7 years .

In 1990 Meyer was the first to receive the professorship for photography in Norway at the National College of Art in Bergen . There he founded the "Institute of Photography". In 1998 Meyer returned to Oslo, where he still lives today, and founded a private college for photography.

Professional associations

In 1974 Meyer initiated the "Forbundet Frie Fotografer" (association of independent photographers) and two years later he was involved in the founding of the gallery "Norsk Fotohistorisk Forening", of which he became chairman in 1979.

Exhibitions

Meyer's exhibition "Icons of the 60's", which took place at the opening of the Norwegian rock museum "Rockheim".

In 1964, Meyer's pictures were shown for the first time at a student exhibition in Stockholm. He made his official debut as a photo artist with the exhibition "Lys" ("Light") at the exhibition at the "National College of Art and Design" in 1970. In addition to numerous solo and group exhibitions in Norway, Meyer took part in the photography Biennale in Polish Gdansk and presented a solo exhibition at the Brandts Museum of Photographic Art in Odense ( Denmark ).

In 2002 and 2003, two presentations followed in the Norwegian “Preus Museum”, the national museum for photography.

In autumn 2009 the retrospective exhibition "Presence - 50 Years of Photography", which showed pictures from Meyer's works of the last 50 years, opened in the "Nesodden Art Forum".

In 2010 Meyer designed the large photo exhibition for the opening of "Rockheim", the national museum for rock music in Trondheim . His exhibition “Icons of the 60's” consisted of mostly oversized historical portraits of the musicians he met in the 1960s. These include John Lennon , Yoko Ono , The Rolling Stones , Bob Dylan , Rory Gallagher , Roy Orbison , Julie Felix and Norwegian artists such as Terje Rypdal and Wencke Myhre . In addition to his own exhibitions, Meyer worked as a curator for other museums and galleries.

Exhibitions as a curator

  • 1987: Simulo - a postmodern photo exhibition (Oslo City Hall)
  • 1989: Den glemte tradisjonen - 150 years of photography (Oslo, Bergen, Trondhjem, Tromsø, Stavanger og Haugesund)
  • 1990: Christer Strömholm (Bergen Kunstforening)
  • 1991: Splint (Künstlerhaus Oslo & Vestlandske Kunstindustriemuseeum Bergen)
  • 1991: Ernst Schwitters (Bergen picture gallery)
  • 2005: Edvard Munch - Photographic self-portraits (Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome , Italy )

In 2005 Meyer presented a selection of Edvard Munch's photographs as part of the major Edvard Munch exhibition "Munch 1963-1944", which was held in Rome in the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II . He also prepared a mobile exhibition for Munch's 150th birthday, which was shown in fifteen locations in Norway between 2013 and 2015.

Robert Meyer Collection

Over time, Meyer built up the largest private art history collection in Norway. He exhibited these as the “Robert Meyer Collection” (RMC) from 2005 to 2006 in the “National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design” in Oslo. The collection, which focuses on Norwegian and Nordic photography and includes a specialized library, received great recognition. Parts of the collection were already shown in 1989 in the exhibition "Den glemte tradisjonen" (The forgotten tradition) of the "Oslo Fine Art Society" in other cities in Norway.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Robert Meyer . In: Store norske leksikon . January 4, 2017 ( snl.no [accessed March 20, 2019]).
  2. ↑ a b Hanne Holm-Johnsen: Robert Meyer . In: Norsk biografisk leksikon . September 28, 2014 ( snl.no [accessed March 20, 2019]).
  3. ^ The Robert Meyer Collection. Retrieved March 20, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian photographer, historian, professor, collector and author
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Oslo