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Wilhelm Ludwig Lucke-Meyer
Melbourne photographer 1920s-1930s
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| W.L. Lucke-Meyer, The portico Melbourne Town Hall, after a concert, circa 1933 |
Wilhelm Ludwig Luckemeyer was born in Witten, Germany in 1893 and served in the German Infantry and Artillery 1914-18.
In 1919 a German census has him listed as a master carpenter. He arrived in Australia 1st December 1926 from Toulon disembarking in Adelaide. One listing in 1933 has him as a photographer for WL Meyer at 117 Collins Street Melbourne. He exhibited in the Victorian Salon of Photography as W.L. Lucke-Meyer.
In 1934 Lucke-Meyer's nocturne photographs were used for Melbourne by Night, a special one-off publication by Sydney Ure Smith with the text by the poet Basil Burdett. It is likely the publication was originated by Ure Smith and Basil Burdett rather than an initiative of the photographer. But that remains speculation.
The title suggests the publication was inspired by Hungarian born photographer Brassai’s 1933 Paris by night. The background to the commission was aimed at the 1934 Victorian Centenary. Local photographers must have been a little surprised at the choice of Lucke-Meyer over established locals such as John Kauffmann or Spencer Shier.
The work remain a rare but significant photobook. Copies are held in few locations and are very rare on the private market. The quality of work is very high. How Ure Smith came to choose a photographer with very little published or exhibited work is a mystery.
His representation today is the book, a couple of prints in the State Library of Victoria, two prints in the City of Melbourne Collection, a few standard historical photographs of events and sites held by councils and other organisations, and a couple of advertising photographs in commercial magazines. In 1936 Lucke-Meyer was listed as official photographer for The Modern Store an ambitious well illustrated new quarterly trade journal on modern design and architecture edited by JJ Stewart-Malir. The second issue in March 1936 carried Lucke-Meyer’s images of the new Capel Court building in Collins Street. There is no known archive of his works.
Lucke-Meyer supplied images to German publications including photographs of the March 1935 St Patrick’s Day parade in Melbourne. The sophistication of his art photography and illustrative work indicate Lucke-Meyer had possibly learned photography in Germany before his arrival and been familiar with art photography in Europe. But we do not know for sure where and when he learnt his photography and acquired the aesthetic approach the landed the commission for Melbourne by Night.
Lucke-Meyer was interned on 4 September 1939. He had been living in Hotham Street East Melbourne and working for Johns and Waygood engineers in Cecil Street South Melbourne. He was described at five feet ten inches, grey hair blue eyes and a scar near his left eye. He was held until 1947 when repatriated at his request in the hope of finding his sister Julia in Germany. He learned later no family survived and sought to remain with support form Johns and Waygood. However, the official files in the National Archives of Australia listed his considerable political activity during his time in Melbourne and he was deemed undesirable. Lucke-Meyer was deported on the General Heintzelman on 24 November 1947.
Lucke-Meyer’s assets were confiscated on deportation. This probably means that his photographic archive, plates, negatives and any records were destroyed - or may be sitting somewhere in an attic, but this seems unlikely. So it remains that the most we know of his photographic style is through the 1934 celebratory photobook - Melbourne By Night.
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