Frederick G. Meyer
1919—2009

Fred Meyer lived in Harwich and was a member of the Board of Advisors for the Cape Cod Museum of Art from its inception until the Board was dissolved. He also served for a period of time on the Museum’s Exhibition Committee. He participated in the Museum’s annual live auctions since they started in 1987, and also participated, as an artist, in their annual Secret Gardens Tour. He served for 13 years on the Board of Directors and on the Executive Committee of the Cape Cod Art Association and was instrumental in converting it into a juried organization. He was a founding member of the Guild of Harwich Artists, along with Eleanor Ferri Jones, where he served as Secretary, Vice President, and President, and ran Art-in-the-Park for 30 years. He was a founding member of the Yarmouth Art Guild, and was also a member of the Creative Arts Center in Chatham, the Orleans Art Association, and the Pastel Painters of Cape Cod.

Meyer started painting around the time he moved to the Cape in 1977. Previously, he was an electrical engineer for 3M in Vermont and New York. Primarily a self-taught painter, he took workshops with a number of nationally-known artists. He received many awards and had paintings accepted into a number of museum exhibits, including the International Society of Marine Painters, the Cape Cod Museum of Art, and the New England Watercolor Society. He was accepted as a professional artist member of the International Society of Marine Painters in 1984, and had been a member of the Copley Society since 1988.

Meyer was an avid outdoor painter who also enjoyed painting in his studio and was proficient in oil, watercolors, pastels and acrylics. One of his paintings was selected to be on the cover of Realty Executives magazine, with 60,000 copies distributed throughout New England. His painting, “Man vs. Nature,” was selected as one of 44 finalists from 4,600 entries in The Artist’s Magazine’s annual competition, with entries from throughout the US and Canada. His paintings are in many private collections both in the US and abroad, and he has paintings in the collections of the Cape Cod Museum of Art and the Cape Cod Conservatory.

His son Michael Meyer said of his father, "My Dad played an important part in the art community on the Cape. He was a quiet and selfless man who got things done and always looked to the bigger picture. For example, he made sure that the organizations, school, library, etc. received donations of time, money, materials, and paintings. This evolved into the addition of a Scholarship Fund in the case of the Harwich Guild."

For more information, contact Michael Meyer at cape44@comcast.net