Souvenirs Fire Island: 1970’s The Photography of Meryl Meisler
Curated by Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society
Meryl Meisler is an American photographer. In the 1970s she photographed in New York City nightclubs and in the 1980s she photographed residents of Bushwick, Brooklyn, while working as a public school teacher there. She also frequented Fire Island where she photographed and captured the era of the 1970’s.
Meryl Meisler
was born in 1951 in the South Bronx and raised in Long Island, NY, USA. Inspired by Diane Arbus, Jacques Henri Lartigue, her dad Jack and grandfather Murray Meisler, she enrolled in a photography class at The University of Wisconsin–Madison.
She moved to NYC in 1975 and studied with Lisette Model, while 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. Throughout the 1970’s and 80’s, Meisler carried a camera with her everywhere. The places she frequented most were her home in the Jewish suburbia of Long Island, her workplace at a Bushwick public school, the New York streets she roamed, and of course, clubs. But Meisler never printed or shared the majority of her photos until recently, after retiring from her long teaching career. As a result, her most acclaimed works are a time capsule for a bygone era of New York.
After discovering her work on Fire Island we reached out to her for a collaboration on an exhibit exclusively of Fire Island images. This would coordinate with our Souvenirs disco event at the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove, and so it all came together just like that...
The Exhibit has gotten great press…
