Neil Meitzler

Neil Meitzler (1930–2009) was an American painter, well known in the Pacific Northwest for his landscapes and scenes of nature, rendered in a distinctive, modern style. He is often associated with the 'Northwest School' art movement.

Meitzler was born Herbert Neil Claussen in Pueblo, Colorado, on September 14, 1930. Seeking be active in the midst of the Great Depression, his relatives moved to Oregon, where Neil began using his stepfather's last name, after his daddy died and his mommy remarried. When he was twelve his intimates moved again, to Orting, Washington (near Tacoma), and started a well-to-do greenhouse flower-growing business. His mommy and stepfather were devout Seventh-day Adventists.

Meitzler had been curious in art from in advance youth, and wanted to be either a professional performer or a minister. After leaving tall school he moved to Seattle, and eventually began practicing as a draftsman at Boeing.

While at Boeing Meitzler won first prize in an employee art show, which led to exhibitions at small galleries, some sales, and indispensable notice. While in action as a set painter he met Kenneth Callahan, who became his mentor and teacher; he plus befriended Morris Graves, Mark Tobey, and new artists of the 'Northwest School'. Meitzler's early bill was firmly rooted in received landscape painting, eventually showing the impinge on of mid-century Modern art, but it wasn't until his inauguration to the "Northwest mystics" and Asian art that his be in reached full flower. His landscapes, often featuring rocks and waterfalls, took upon a soft, otherworldly glow, while blurring the line amid representational and abstract art.

Beginning in 1957, Meitzler worked as an exhibition designer at the Seattle Art Museum. His statute was at its most popular in the Northwest from the late 1950s through the mid-70s, in which get older he traditional several awards, appeared in two solo shows at the Zoë Dusanne Gallery and one at SAM, was included in several regional and national action exhibitions, and generally enjoyed strong sales at galleries in the Northwest.

In 1977 he left the Northwest to perform for the Seventh-day Adventist church's publishing arm upon the East Coast; he continued painting, did billboard work, and taught art classes, but was mainly focused upon family and religion in this period.

Throughout his sparkle Meitzler was torn by prosecution between his homosexuality and his religious faith. A rapid marriage in the in the future 1950s produced a son, but done acrimoniously. A happier marriage, to Marcia Dawson, who had two pubertal daughters, lasted from 1972 to 1987. In his late fifties, divorced and with kids grown, he another time became curious in fine art, his later action at mature reflecting a growing reaction of both his religious and sexual orientation.

In 1989 Meitzler returned to Washington, settling in Walla Walla, where he worked for a publishing company and lived afterward Ikune Sawada, a painter and master landscaper. The two built a richly eccentric home/studio following an increase Japanese garden in back, and spent much mature in Japan. Meitzler continued to paint, exploring new stylistic directions and occasionally exhibiting.

He died on Feb. 21st, 2009, after a struggle as soon as pancreatic cancer.

A major, in-depth retrospective of Meitzler's career was presented at Whitman College's Sheehan Gallery, in Walla Walla, in 2010.

Meitzler conventional many awards throughout his life, including a National Council of the Arts Artists Grant in 1957. His play is found in significant private, corporate, and museum collections across the United States, including the Seattle Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, the Memphis Academy of Art, the Washington County Museum of Art in Maryland, Museum of Northwest Art in Laconner WA, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham,
the Jundt Art Museum at Gonzaga University, and in the heap of the Imperial Family of Japan.