Neil Meitzler

(Herbert) Neil MEITZLER Renowned Northwest artist, died February 21, 2009 at his home in Walla Walla, Washington. He was 78. He was professionally involved in the visual arts throughout his adult life having worked for the Boeing corporation, the Seattle Art Museum, and publishing concerns in New Hampshire, Georgia, and Maryland as well as for College Press in Walla Walla from which he retired in 1995. He remained active as a working artist, exhibiting in the Puget Sound area, the Tri-Cities and Walla Walla. He made many contributions to local arts events. Neil was well recognized in the Puget Sound as an artist associated with those of the "Northwest School" having been identified with the four "Northwest Masters". Morris Graves arranged his job as an exhibition designer at the Seattle Art Museum in 1957 where Kenneth Callahan was Curator. Neil acknowledged Callahan as his mentor and remained his longtime personal friend. Self-taught, he generously shared his art and expertise gained from a lifetime of learning. His love of the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest inspired and informed the content of his art. His stylistic identity was consistent, his forms fluid like nature itself. He has been identified among those painters important to the development of art in the Puget Sound in the 1960's. Walla Walla University art instructor, Martha Mason, notes "...he understood the necessary merger of idea and experience and technique that gives art its power. He is well-known in the Northwest school as a landscape artist who went further than most in stating the fundamental dignity of the earth ...". Neil received many awards throughout his life, including a National Council of the Arts Artists Grant in 1957. His work is found in significant private, corporate, and museum collections across the United States which include the Seattle Art Museum; the Henry Gallery; the Memphis Academy of Art; the Washington County Museum of Art in Maryland; Museum of Northwest Art in Laconner WA; Whatcom Museum, Bellingham; and the Jundt Art Museum at Gonzaga University, and in the collection of the Imperial Family of Japan. Well-mannered and soft-spoken, he enjoyed life and loved his family. He surrounded himself with order and beauty.A spiritual person, he kept a strong faith which sustained him during his last months. He is survived by his son, Kenneth Palmore of Lodi, California; daughter, Carrie Leonard of Anchorage, Alaska; and step-daughter, Charlotte Englehart of Hermiston, Oregon; ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He is also survived by a sister, Erma Lamb of Dexter, New Mexico; brothers Steven Meitzler of Orting, Washington and Leland Meitzler of Bountiful, Utah. He was preceded in death by his father, Maynard Claussen; mother, Virginia (Cornett) Meitzler; step-father, Theodore Meitzler and sister, Beverly Hubbard. Family and friends will gather this summer to honor and remember him. At his request, his ashes will be buried at his second home in Japan and in his Walla Walla garden.