Meyerowitz's father was a wealthy German businessman and his mother a Russian pianist who had studied with Arthur Rubinstein.
At the time of the 1905 Revolution, the family moved from Russia to Switzerland, where Meyerowitz was educated at a Pestalozzi school.
On the completion of his art training, Meyerowitz moved to South Africa with his wife Eva, where he established a reputation as a wood sculptor.
He organised an exhibition of African Arts and Crafts as part of the International Educational Conference in Salisbury, Rhodesia.
He said in a speech that the traditional African art on show was "good, because it still fulfilled its purpose", but that the work brought in from the schools and institutions was "trash ... which we, in the name of education, had inflicted on the people of Africa".
H.M.Grace, the Principal of Achimota College in the Gold Coast (Ghana), offered Meyerowitz the job of arts and crafts supervisor.
Meyerowitz and Eva made a survey of the indigenous crafts of the Gold Coast, which they found to be in decline.
From 1937, Meyerowitz began to develop a scheme for an Institute of West African Arts, Industries and Social Sciences, which would be a "marriage of the aesthetic skill and power to modern technique".
The Colonial Office adopted instead a policy developing indigenous industries and eventually accepted Meyerowitz's idea.