Ray K. Metzker

RAY K. METZKER (USA, 1931-2014).
Untitled. 1997.
Photograph.
Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 35 x 27 cm; 66 x 55.5 cm.

Ray K. Metzker was an American photographer known primarily for his bold, experimental black-and-white cityscapes and for his large "compositions," assemblages of printed film strips and single frames. His work is held in several major public collections and is the subject of eight monographs. He has received awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Royal Photographic Society. Metzker was a student of Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design in Chicago. He taught for many years at the Philadelphia College of Art and also taught at the University of New Mexico. After graduate studies at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Metzker traveled extensively in Europe in 1960-61, where he had two epiphanies: that "light" would be his main theme and that he would seek synthesis and complexity over simplicity. Metzker used to say that the artist begins his explorations by embracing what he does not know. Awards: 1966: Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 1975: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. 1988: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. 1989: Bernheim Fellowship at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, Clermont, Kentucky. 2000: Centenary Medal, Royal Photographic Society, Bath (HonFRPS). He is represented, among many other museums, at: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum of Modern Art, New York: 14 prints (as of 22 December 2021). J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York: 14 prints (as of 15 December 2021). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.