Over to Lambertville focuses on the stacked arrangement of buildings, church steeples, and trees of Lambertville, New Jersey, along the banks of the Delaware River. White, orange, and blue reflections of the buildings animate the calm water. The blue trestle bridge on the right connects Lambertville with New Hope, Pennsylvania, which would have been Metlzer’s vantage point for this scene. Meltzer famously made his own frames, and this painting boasts a typical example.
Meltzer was born in Minneapolis to parents who had immigrated from Lithuania. Lacking formal art courses in high school, he supplemented his studies with Saturday classes and apprenticed at a stained-glass studio for six years before serving in World War I. Encouraged by fellow artist Kenneth Earl Bates, Meltzer enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1919, studying with Daniel Garber, Joseph Pearson, Hugh Breckenridge, and Arthur B. Carles. Meltzer won a Cresson Traveling Scholarship, touring Europe with Paxton and other young artists. After a third year at PAFA, he painted landscapes in Berks County, PA, attracting attention from patrons including Harriet Sartain, who invited him to join the faculty of the Philadelphia School of Design (now Moore College of Art). There he met and married fellow artist Paulette van Roekens. Meltzer’s works are held in major national museums and private collections. He served as a trustee of Woodmere from the 1970s through the early 1980s.
