Wilhelm Ludwig Luckemeyer was born in Witten,Germany in 1893 and served in the German Infantry and Artillery 1914-18. He arrived in Australia 1 December 1926 disembarking in Adelaide but by 1933 was based in Melbourne working as an engineer but also exhibiting in the Victorian Salon of Photography as W.L.Lucke-Meyer.
In 1934 Lucke-Meyer illustrated a moody book published by Art in Australia, Melbourne by Night Photographed by W.L. Lucke-Meyer, with text by poet Basil Burdett. The work is in full pictorialist soft romantic style and inspired most likely by Paul Morand’s 1933 Paris by night. Local photographers must have been a little surprised at the choice of Lucke-Meyer over locals like John Kauffmann or Spencer Shier. The work is a significant photobook and background to the commission would be interesting.
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 indicated Lucke-Meyer had probably learned photography in Germany before his arrival and been familiar with art photography in Europe.
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 Collin’s street.
Lucke-Meyer was interned on 4 September 1939 the 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, and 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 considerable political activity over his time in Melbourne deemed undesirable and Lucke-Meyer was deported on the General Heintzelman on 24 November 1947.
Copies of Melbourne by Night are rare and only one print is known a view of the public library in the State Library of Victoria. No known archive.
- Writers:
-
newtog
- Date written:
- 2023
- Last updated:
- 2023
