Susan Meyer, left, and Adam Hansen. Photos by David Jackson/Park Record
Park City, UT – Susan Meyer, who purchased the gallery from her parents Darrell and Gerri Meyer in 1997, has turned the ownership reins over to Adam Hansen, who has been the gallery’s director since 2012. For the first time in nearly 60 years, Meyer Gallery is no longer owned by someone in the Meyer family.
I have so many other interests, and since I still have good health, and there are things I want to explore and enjoy. Meyer said.
Susan has spent the past couple of years contemplating whether to retire. “It’s a painful decision, being that this has been family-owned for so long, but both my mother and father passed during the last 14 months, and something this winter told me now was the time,” she said. Meyer Gallery was first established in 1965 as the Hanging Room Gallery. Gerri Meyer had been working with a committee in Park City that put together the prequel to the Kimball Arts Festival, and that was the start of her idea to begin a gallery.
Working with Meyer for the past 12 years has helped Hansen develop his method of finding artists for the gallery. “The quality has to be there,” he said. “That’s No. 1, and it helps if what they do fits the feel of everything else we have going on, but not too closely. You don’t want the art to be knockoffs of what we currently have, but you want it to fit the general vision we have for the gallery.”
Honestly, it’s a lot to take on,” Hansen said. “Susan’s parents started it in 1965, and it’s been in the Meyer family for 60 years. So it’s quite the legacy, and it’s been a bit intimidating to step into that and be the steward of that. Hopefully, I’ve figured some things out in the past 12 years to do that.
Hansen said Meyer has done an amazing job keeping the local flavor in curating the gallery. Hansen began working with Meyer after she opened another gallery in Salt Lake City in 2008, during the country’s great recession. Although that gallery didn’t last very long due to the economy, Meyer asked Hansen to manage the Park City gallery after one of her longtime employees retired.
“He was certainly the best applicant,” Meyer laughed while talking about Hansen. “But I could tell he loved art. He loved talking about art, and it made him happy. Even if he hadn’t sold something in a few days because we were in a tough economic time, he was still as perky and happy as could be about his job. And I thought, ‘Gee, I want this energy around me.’”
Excerpted from Park Record – Entertainment – 6/8/2024
by Scott Iwasaki