GALERIE MEYER OCEANIC & ESKIMO ART

Galerie Meyer - Oceanic Art celebrates 40 years of fine antiques and Tribal Art in 2020. The original gallery was opened by my father, Oscar Meyer, on rue du Sabot just a few streets away, on the other side of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1946/1947. Later in the early 1950's he moved to the United States, met and married my mother, Rita Alix Meyer. They settled in Los Angeles and opened up a very large gallery at 847 North La Cienega Bd. They closed in 1971 and moved to Paris where they took an early retirement from the active world of dealing in art and devoted themselves to collecting. After my father's death in 1979, Rita Alix Meyer opened a small shop in the “Louvre des Antiquaires”. I joined her there in late 1980 and became a dealer. Over the next five years while we developed the business I discovered that although I enjoyed all forms and periods of art, there was one area that I found to be most compelling and thus I became specialized in Tribal Art and more specifically Oceanic Art. After two years on Rue de Lille partnered with John Barnett who dealt in Himalayan and Indian Art, my mother and I opened the present gallery in 1985/1986 at 17 Rue des Beaux Arts. The building, which has its main entrance around the corner at 13 Rue Bonaparte has a wonderful history. It was home to the artist André Derain from 1910 through 1927. He was one of the main "discoverers" of Tribal Art along with de Vlaminck, Picasso and Matisse. At the same time André Dunoyer de Segonzac lived and painted here as well, with his studio just opposite that of Derain. Picasso, Apollinaire, Marie Laurencin and many exalted others were regular visitors. The art dealer Pierre Loeb founded his first gallery in the same building at 13 rue Bonaparte in 1924 and hosted the first Surrealism exhibition there in 1925 before moving to Rue des Beaux-Arts where he hosted many Tribal Art exhibitions, mixing them with the Modern and Contemporary art of the early and mid 20th century. In 1986 I finally decided to devote myself exclusively to Oceanic Art. Since then I have dealt in the fine and early art works of the Pacific Island cultures : Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and Australia. Rita Alix Meyer retired in 1996, and I have run the business on my own since then. In 1995 my two volume book "Oceanic Art" was published by Ludwig Könemann and in the last 30 years I have written and published 30 thematic Oceanic Art catalogues. In 2010 I added a new department to the gallery specializing in early Eskimo art, an area of collecting that I was privately involved in for already more than two decades. I am an internationally recognized expert and an exhibitor in many of the world's greatest art fairs notably TEFAF in Maastricht, Frieze Masters in London, and Parcours des Mondes and La Biennale in Paris and of course the wonderful Bourgogne Tribal Show in Besanceuil, France. I'm honored to count many of the world's museums, institutions and private collectors as my clients and I give thanks for their continuous patronage and custom. Please enjoy the website and I appreceate your feedback and questions. Feel free to come by and meet me and browse through the stock next time you are in Paris...