Ray Metzker

Metzker was born in Milwaukee and lived in Philadelphia from the 1960s until his death. He was married to the photographer Ruth Thorne-Thomsen.

He 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[5] also taught at the University of New Mexico.

After graduate studies at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Metzker travelled extensively throughout Europe in 1960-61, where he had two epiphanies: that "light" would be his primary subject, and that he would seek synthesis and complexity over simplicity. Metzker often said the artist begins his explorations by embracing what he doesn't know.

• 1966: Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.[1]
• 1975: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.[2]
• 1988: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.[3]
• 1989: Bernheim Fellowship at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, Clermont, Kentucky.
• 2000: Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS).[4]

Metzker's work is held in the following public collections:[5]

• Art Institute of Chicago.
• Albertina Museum, Vienna.
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
• Museum of Modern Art, New York.
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.
• J.Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
• Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
• Sir Elton John Collection, Atlanta.
• Martin Margulies Collection, Miami.
• William Gautreaux Collection, Kansas City, Mo.
• Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass.
• Allen Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio.
• Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ.
• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Md.
• Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin.
• Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
• Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
• Davison Art Center, Middleton, Conn.
• The Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan.
• Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
• Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Paris
• High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga.
• International Museum of Photography, GEH, Rochester, NY.
• Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Ky.
• Maison Europeene de la Photographie, Paris.
• Musee d'Elysee, Lausanne.
• Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee.
• Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston
• National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
• National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.
• Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan.
• Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska.
• Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Mo.
• Currier Gallery, Manchester, N.H.
• Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio.
• Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass.