Carmel Magazine

He attended Willamette University, where he studied under renowned Salem, Oregon, artist Carl Hall. "I left school and started painting full time in a small cottage on my parent's property. Hall had told me that I needed to get my first 100 paintings out of the way before I could be a true professional." With that task behind him, Van Meger t left Oregon in the rear-view mirror and headed south. "There was no way to sell my paintings there," he says. His first step upon arriving here was to join the Carmel Art Association. "They're a nonprofit organization and it was a good place for a young ar tist to get star ted," he says. "Many ar t buyers go there because they view it as perhaps less commercial than some other galleries." The compelling paintings he was producing began selling immediately and eventually caught the eye of former Coast Gallery of Big Sur and Pebble Beach owner Gary Koeppel. "Over the years, I've represented 2,000 artists in seven galleries and in 40 expositions," Koeppel says. "I can truthfully say that out of that number, there are only two that I consider to be true artists. Van Megert is one of them." What does he mean by the term "true artist"? "Jerry doesn't create for the commercial mar- ket," Koeppel says. "He paints for himself and no one else. That's one of the attributes that sets him apart from everyone else in the field." It's obvious that the former gallery owner is one of Van Megert's biggest fans and is a tireless promoter of his work. And that's a good thing, because the soft-spoken artist is much more focused on working than on promoting. "I don't talk," he says often. "I paint." Until just recently, Van Me- gert lived and painted in an oceanfront home just a long iron shot from the Lodge at Pebble Beach. As an inspirational envi- ronment, that's hard to beat. Many of his paint- ings depict scenes around the Del Monte Forest, including the greens and fairways of the most famous golf courses in the world. Over the 138 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 2 0 Living in Pebble Beach for 50 years, Van Megert was awed by the Del Monte Forest's beauty. This view of the 5th hole at Pebble is typical of his expert portrayals of the revered golf course. Many of his paintings depict scenes around the Del Monte Forest, including the greens and fairways of the most famous golf courses in the world.

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