myers – FTN-blog

A few years ago i wrote a blog on Vali Myers. She was the” Muse” of Ed van der Elsken for many years and his series with her as a subject is a classic amonglast-century photographs. A few years ago the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam organized an exhibition on Ed van der Elsken and his works. The series with Vali Myeres stood out and was used in the publication to illustrate his Parisian years. The book is now available at www.ftn-books.com and for those interested in Vali Myers the invitation card for a book presentation on her is still available.

Schermafbeelding 2019-10-20 om 10.50.32

……..and in the title also should also be Ed van der Elsken. Van der Elsken was fascinated by Myers, from his early days in Paris until his death he followed Myers and her career.

Myers was born in Canterbury, Sydney, on 2 August 1930, to a violinist mother and marine wireless operator father. She displayed a talent for art at an early age. The family moved to Box Hill, Melbourne in 1941 and Vali left home at 14. After working in factories to support her dance lessons, she became immersed in dance and later became the leading dancer for the Melbourne Modern Ballet Company.^[1] In 1949 at age 19 Myers travelled to impoverished post-war Paris to pursue a dance career but found herself living on the streets of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Quarter on the Left Bank.^[1] Love on the Left Bank is a 1954 book of photographs from Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken (1925–1990), documenting the bohemian life on the Rive Gauche of Paris; Vali Myers is the heroine of this semi-biographical roman à clef, and is also photographed along with some of her early drawings.

Myers was a flamboyant fantasy artist who worked in pen and ink and watercolour as well as being a nightclub dancer. She divided her life between her adopted home of Melbourne, the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, Paris, and a 14th-century cottage in a valley near Il Porto (Positano), Italy. This is wher4e the following van der Elsken documentary was filmed: