Vali Myers

Vali Myers

Vali Myers by Erica Parrott
Born Vali Myers
(1930-08-02)2 August 1930
Canterbury, Sydney, Australia
Died 12 February 2003(2003-02-12) (aged 72)
Melbourne, Australia
Nationality Australian

Vali Myers (2 August 1930 – 12 February 2003) was an Australian visionary artist, dancer, bohemian and muse whose coverage by the media was mostly in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s in Europe and the United States.

Early life

Myers was born in Canterbury, Sydney on 2 August 1930, to a violinist mother and marine wireless operator father. She displayed a talent for art at an early age. The family moved to Box Hill, Melbourne in 1941 and Vali left home at 14. After working in factories to support her dance lessons, she became immersed in dance and later became the leading dancer for the Melbourne Modern Ballet Company.[1] In 1949 at age 19 Myers travelled to impoverished post-war Paris to pursue a dance career but found herself living on the streets of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Quarter on the Left Bank.[1] Love on the Left Bank is a 1954 book of photographs from Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken (1925–1990), documenting the bohemian life on the Rive Gauche of Paris; Vali Myers is the heroine of this semi-biographical roman à clef, and is also photographed along with some of her early drawings.

Career

Myers was a flamboyant fantasy artist who worked in pen and ink and watercolour as well as being a nightclub dancer. She divided her life between her adopted home of Melbourne, the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, Paris, and a 14th-century cottage in a valley near Il Porto (Positano), Italy.

Her visionary art works developed from early detailed monochromes to a full range of vibrant colours and tones[2] extending to watercolour and gold leaf, displaying a "fastidiously rendered depiction of a personal spirit world".[3] She was acquainted with many celebrities and creatives including Tennessee Williams, Salvador Dalí, Django Reinhardt, Jean Cocteau, Patti Smith, Jean Genet, Sam Shepard and many others.

Myers' paintings have sold for up to $US40,000 ($A68,000) in New York. Her work was held in the Stuyvesant collection in the Netherlands, New York's Hurryman Collection, and is owned by private collectors such as George Plimpton and Mick Jagger.[3]

Personal life

While in Europe she married Rudi Rappold, a Hungarian gypsy, and moved to Positano. The marriage ended and eventually her lover, Italian artist Gianni Menichetti moved in and helped turn the property into a wildlife sanctuary endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund.[4] Later, after she began having seizures, she returned to Melbourne in 1993, and opened a studio in the Nicholas Building; only returning to Positano occasionally.[1]

Death

Myers died in Melbourne on 12 February 2003 shortly after being diagnosed with cancer at the age of 72.

On 18 January 2003, a month before Myers' death, The Age newspaper printed an article about her life. The article concluded with the following quote from Myers:

I've had 72 absolutely flaming years. It [the illness] doesn't bother me at all, because, you know, love, when you've lived like I have, you've done it all. I put all my effort into living; any dope can drop dead. I'm in the hospital now, and I guess I'll kick the bucket here. Every beetle does it, every bird, everybody. You come into the world and then you go."[3]

LUMA

An exhibition of her work was held at LUMA (La Trobe University Museum of Art) in 2013. The show, Between Dusk and Dawn was a personal retrospective that included works from private collections in the US and Europe and ran in September and October.[5]

Books

Filmography

Legacy

References

  1. 1 2 3 obituary
  2. ↑ http://other-magazine.com/the-witch-of-positano-the-enchanted-art-of-vali-myers/ LUMA Between Dusk and Dawn exhibition review "The Enchanted Art and Life of Vali Myers", David Mattichak in Other magazine 31 October 2013
  3. 1 2 3 The Age article January 2003, while Myers was hospitalised, "The Final Dream of a Bohemian Priestess" by James Norman
  4. ↑ Menichetti, Gianni, Vali Myers Memoirs Fresno, CA : Golda Foundation, 2006 : ISBN 0-9785606-0-4
  5. ↑ LUMA Vali Myers Art Gallery Trust
  6. ↑ from Patti Smith: A Biography (1997) by Nick Johnstone Omnibus Press, UK ISBN 0-7119-6193-X paperback.

Sources

External links

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