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    • Episode 8: Deep Dive - Meryl Meisler
    • Episode 12 - Deep Dive - Tracii Guns
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    • Deep Dive - Paul Williams
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    • Deep Dive - Diversity on Broadway and Musical Movies - LGBTQIA+, Feminist, Cult, Black Broadway Musicals and Movie Musicals 1960's to 2020
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    • Deep Dive - Buffy Sainte-Marie
    • Deep Dive - The Unarius Academy of Science
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    • Deep Dive - Klaus Nomi
    • Deep Dive - Adult (aka Nudie) Musicals 1970's
    • Deep Dive - Gordon Parks
    • Deep Dive - Lee Hazlewood
    • Deep Dive - Harvey Milk
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    • Deep Dive - Angela Davis
    • Deep Dive - The Cockettes and Fayette Hauser
    • Deep Dive - Jandek
    • Deep Dive - Paris is Burning
    • Deep Dive - Elton and Betty White
    • Deep Dive - Werner Herzog
    • Deep Dive - Outsider Musicians
    • Deep Dive - Crispin Glover's "It" Trilogy
    • Deep Dive - The Levitation of The Pentagon
    • Deep Dive - Raunchy 70's Funk and Soul w/ Millie Jackson and Blowfly
    • Deep Dive - The Kuchar Brothers
    • Deep Dive - 1970's and 1980's Afro-Punk Bands
    • Deep Dive - Frank Furko and Pudgie Wudgie
    • Deep Dive - Doris Wishman
    • Deep Dive - Gary Floyd and The Dicks
    • Deep Dive - Jobriath
    • Deep Dive - Harold and Maude (Behind the Scenes)
    • Deep Dive - Judee Sill
    • Deep Dive - Claude Cahun
    • Deep Dive - Cindy Sherman
    • Deep Dive - Diane Arbus
    • Deep Dive - SCTV
    • Deep Dive Shel Silverstein's Adult Material
    • Deep Dive - Yayoi Kusama
    • Deep Dive - Man Ray
    • Deep Dive - Ruth Gordon
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Episode 8: Deep Dive - Meryl Meisler 

Picture
BiographyMeryl Meisler was born in 1951 in the South Bronx and raised in North Massapequa, Long Island, NY. Inspired by Diane Arbus, Jacques Henri Lartigue, and her dad Jack and grandfather Murray Meisler, Meryl began photographing herself, family, and friends while enrolled in a photography class taught by Cavalliere Ketchum at The University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1975, Meryl returned to New York City and studied with Lisette Model, photographing her hometown and the city around her.   
‍After working as a freelance illustrator by day, Meryl frequented and photographed the infamous New York Discos. As a 1978 CETA Artist grant recipient, Meryl created a portfolio of photographs that explored Jewish Identity for the American Jewish Congress. After CETA, Meryl began a 3-decade career as an N.Y.C. Public School Art Teacher.
Meryl was honored with the 2021 Center for Photography at Woodstock Affinity Award. She is included among The Hundred Heroines – a celebration of Women in Photography. TIME includes her in their selection of women trailblazers in photography: The Unsung American Female Photographers of the Past Century. 
Meryl has received fellowships, grants, and residencies from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Light Work, Y.A.D.D.O., V.C.C.A., Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Leonian Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, Time Warner, Artists Space, C.E.T.A., the China Institute, and the Japan Society.
Her work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Historical Society, Dia Art Foundation, MASS MoCA, Islip Art Museum, Griffin Museum, Annenberg Space for Photography, the New Museum for Contemporary Art, New-York Historical Society, Steven Kasher Gallery, The Whitney Museum of American Art and in public spaces including Grand Central Terminal, South Street Seaport, Photoville and throughout the N.Y.C. subway system. Her work is in the permanent collections of the American Jewish Congress, ARTPPOOL Budapest, AT&T, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Brooklyn Historical Society, Book Art Museum- Poland, Columbia University, Emory University, Islip Art Museum, LaGrange Art Museum, Library of Congress, Musée de la Poste Paris, New York Transit Museum, Pfizer, Reuters, Smith College Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institute, University of Iowa, The Waskomium and can be found in the artist book collections of Carnegie Melon, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Chrysler Museum, the Museum of Modern Art N.Y.C., Metronome Library, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Upon retiring from the N.Y.C. public schools, she began releasing large bodies of previously unseen work. Meryl’s first monograph, A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick (Bizarre, 2014), received international acclaim. The book juxtaposes her zenith of disco photos with images of the burned-out yet beautiful neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn in the 1980s. Her second book, Purgatory & Paradise SASSY ‘70s Suburbia & The City (Bizarre, 2015), contrasts intimate images of home life on Long Island alongside N.Y.C. street and nightlife. Her latest monograph, New York PARADISE LOST Bushwick Era Disco (Parallel Pictures Press 2021) makes her first books seem like fairytales. She has returned to her analog roots in the darkroom, making gelatin silver prints of contemporary images and never seen photos from her enormous archive.
Meryl lives and works in New York City and Woodstock, NY, continuing the photographic memoir she began in 1973 – a uniquely American story, sweet and sassy with a pinch of mystery. ClampArt represents her work.

​Articles
https://www.advocate.com/photography/2021/5/25/meryl-meislers-new-york-paradise-lost-depicts-sexy-lost-gotham#rebelltitem1
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/m-le-mag/article/2022/07/09/with-photographer-meryl-meisler-life-is-a-jewish-holiday_5989588_117.html
https://whalebonemag.com/nightclubbing-with-meryl-meisler/
https://streetphotographymagazine.com/article/interview-with-meryl-meisler/
https://www.advocate.com/photography/2021/5/25/meryl-meislers-new-york-paradise-lost-depicts-sexy-lost-gotham#rebelltitem1
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-photographers-view-from-inside-a-brooklyn-junior-high
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/lens/a-photographers-search-for-joy-in-uncertain-times-new-york-album.html
http://lenscratch.com/2022/07/meryl-meisler-quirkyvision/
https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/pkbazz/meryl-meisler-new-york-1980s-photography
https://www.amny.com/entertainment/arts-entertainment/souvenirs-fire-island-1970s-the-photography-of-meryl-meisler/
https://artspiel.org/meryl-meisler-quirkyvision-at-the-portraits-festival-in-vichy/
https://news.syr.edu/blog/2021/04/07/light-work-presents-meryl-meisler-best-of-times-worst-of-times/
https://www.thenewyorkoptimist.net/meryl-meisler-photography.html
https://acurator.com/meryl-meisler-new-york-paradise-lost/
https://en.korpermagazine.com/meryl-meisler
https://dailyorange.com/2021/04/meryl-meisler-bushwick-light-work-new-york-city/
https://www.all-about-photo.com/photo-events/photo-exhibition/1834/meryl-meisler-the-best-of-times-worst-of-times
https://www.all-about-photo.com/photo-events/photo-exhibition/1883/meryl-meisler-new-york-paradise-lost-bushwick-era-disco
https://www.fotofemmeunited.com/article/312
https://www.ccp.sa.edu.au/news-features/inspiration-meryl-meisler-new-york-hedonism-in-the-1980s
https://www.blind-magazine.com/news/meryl-meislers-two-loves/
https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/18/living/gallery/tbt-meryl-meisler/index.html
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/podcasts/photography/sometimes-it-takes-time-photography-meryl-meisler-bh-photography-podcast


Video Playlist 
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh4zYKaPKme4scn7_hr5m8QLNaoV-WDPM

Meryl's Youtube Page 
https://www.youtube.com/@merylmeisler/featured

Books 
https://www.merylmeisler.com/books

We will be referring to the images below in the podcast episode .

  • Home
  • Vintage Annals Archive Outsider Podcast
  • Vintage Annals Archive Feed
  • The Jewish Vintage Annals Archive - Digital Online Archive
  • VAA Podcast Guests Deep Dives
    • Episode 8: Deep Dive - Meryl Meisler
    • Episode 12 - Deep Dive - Tracii Guns
    • Episode 14 - Deep Dive Podcast Guest - Ann Magnuson
  • VAA Deep Dives
    • Deep Dive - Paul Williams
    • Deep Dive - Pee Wee Herman
    • Deep Dive - Private Press Records
    • Deep Dive - Old School Kind and Bad-Ass Jewish Managers and Producers of the 70's 80's, and 90's
    • Deep Dive - Diversity on Broadway and Musical Movies - LGBTQIA+, Feminist, Cult, Black Broadway Musicals and Movie Musicals 1960's to 2020
    • Deep Dive - Florynce Kennedy
    • Deep Dive - Buffy Sainte-Marie
    • Deep Dive - The Unarius Academy of Science
    • Deep Dive - Daniel Johnston
    • Deep Dive - Grace Jones
    • Deep Dive - Weeki Wachee Mermaids
    • Deep Dive - Marsha P Johnson
    • Deep Dive - Hunter S. Thompson
    • Deep Dive - Gimme Gimme Octopus Kure Kure Takora
    • Deep Dive - Klaus Nomi
    • Deep Dive - Adult (aka Nudie) Musicals 1970's
    • Deep Dive - Gordon Parks
    • Deep Dive - Lee Hazlewood
    • Deep Dive - Harvey Milk
    • Deep Dive - Leonard Peltier
    • Deep Dive - Melvin Van Peebles
    • Deep Dive - Angela Davis
    • Deep Dive - The Cockettes and Fayette Hauser
    • Deep Dive - Jandek
    • Deep Dive - Paris is Burning
    • Deep Dive - Elton and Betty White
    • Deep Dive - Werner Herzog
    • Deep Dive - Outsider Musicians
    • Deep Dive - Crispin Glover's "It" Trilogy
    • Deep Dive - The Levitation of The Pentagon
    • Deep Dive - Raunchy 70's Funk and Soul w/ Millie Jackson and Blowfly
    • Deep Dive - The Kuchar Brothers
    • Deep Dive - 1970's and 1980's Afro-Punk Bands
    • Deep Dive - Frank Furko and Pudgie Wudgie
    • Deep Dive - Doris Wishman
    • Deep Dive - Gary Floyd and The Dicks
    • Deep Dive - Jobriath
    • Deep Dive - Harold and Maude (Behind the Scenes)
    • Deep Dive - Judee Sill
    • Deep Dive - Claude Cahun
    • Deep Dive - Cindy Sherman
    • Deep Dive - Diane Arbus
    • Deep Dive - SCTV
    • Deep Dive Shel Silverstein's Adult Material
    • Deep Dive - Yayoi Kusama
    • Deep Dive - Man Ray
    • Deep Dive - Ruth Gordon
    • Deep Dive - Ralph Eugene Meatyard
    • Deep Dive - Bud Cort
    • Deep Dive - The Shaggs
    • Deep Dive - Phantom of The Paradise
  • VAA Featured Videos/Films Archive
  • About Vintage Annals Archive and Staff
  • About All Family and Found Photo Archive Collections
    • All Time Favorites Found Collection 1940-1990
    • African American Fashion Show 1971
    • African American Found Photos 1970's
    • African American Family 1970's
    • African American Family 80's-90's
    • African American Family Vacation 1970's
    • African American Family 1960's
    • Japanese Family 1940's-1960's
    • 1970's Jewish Wedding
    • Jewish Family 1940's - 1980's
    • Jewish family 1940's -1970's
    • 1960's Jewish Family Collection
    • Vandalized Jewish Cemetery in Philadelphia
    • Jazz and Blues Performers in Philadelphia 1980's
    • Collection of Wedding Portraits from 1960's- 1970's from A Photo Studio
    • Mel Curtis (Schwartz) Adult Film Biz circa 1980’s
    • Roxborough Neighborhood in Philadelphia
    • Found 1960's 35mm Slides
    • Found Professional 1960’s and 1970’s photographs
    • Peggy McSperrin's Family Collection 1950's - 1970's
    • 1980's fashion 35mm slides
    • Insane Collection of 70's Cosplay Photographs
    • Dokken and 80's Slides
    • Black and White 1940's 35mm slides
    • Vintage Publicity Stills From The Sound of Philadelphia Legend Group
    • Shalom Memorial
    • Pet Cemetery Philadelphia
    • 3D FAMILY FOUND PHOTOGRAPHS
    • Found Photo Collection from the 1930's and 1940's
  • VAA Holiday Music and Videos
  • Events and Classes VAA
  • YouTube Page
  • Arlene Gottfried Legacy Project
  • Donation And Support Page
  • Holiday Gift Guide
  • Contact