Meyer was born in 1878 in Melbourne, the second daughter, after Margaret Isabel, of Elizabeth (née McMichael), first wife of Edward Nanson, and older sister of Eleanor Lucy, Katherine St Clair, Francis Wiliam and Judith.

A summer school was offered at Charterisville that Fox and Tucker had established in the old mansion above the Yarra River in East Ivanhoe, the lease of which they had taken over from Walter Withers in 1893.

The women, including Ina Gregory, Mary Meyer, Bertha Merfield, Henrietta Irving, Ursula Foster and Helen Peters were accommodated in rooms of the stone house and a chaperon and housekeeper looked after them.

[9] In about 1902 Mary herself traveled, with her Charterisville friend Ursula Foster[10] (model for Fox's Lady in Black and A Love Story) to study at the Westminster School of Art and at the Slade.

The popular Doctor, by his sunny temperament, has earned the soubriquet amongst his friends of “Australia Felix.’’[15] Juliet Peers proposes that the marriage caused a rift with Mary's family, and that her: Art collecting and the production of a prolific oeuvre of small plein-air works (and copies after the admired Arthur Streeton)[16][17] possibly compensated her for a degree of social ostracism.

[23] Throughout the 1920s-1930s, though perhaps as early as 1912, Mary shared a studio with Ada Plante and Isabel Tweddle in Collins Street, Melbourne,[24] which Max Meldrum frequented,[4] and neighbouring Felix's private practice in obstetrics and gynaecology.

[2] To support the French Red Cross, in July 1916 Meyer participated in an auction of works advertised as 'by Australia's Leading Artists,' beside Rupert Bunny, Edward Officer, Ethel Carrick, Walter Withers, Arthur Boyd, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Violet Teague, Josephine Muntz Adams, Clara Southern, Ina Gregory, Dora Meeson, and others.

[30] Meyer painted prolifically, specialising in small, Impressionist landscapes influenced by her time at Charterisville, seldom exhibiting because, given her wealth, she had no need to work professionally, though she was dismissed or overlooked because of that;[31] she was satisfied to exercise her creativity.