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Indepth Arts News:
"Voyage of Discovery: The Landscape Photographs of Ray K. Metzker"
2000-11-18 until 2001-02-11
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia, PA,
USA
The first museum survey of landscape images by this important American artist, Voyage of Discovery: The
Landscape Photographs of Ray K. Metzker will present more than 100 prints from a remarkable body of
photographs created between 1985 and 1998. On view in the Berman and Stieglitz Galleries of the Philadelphia
Museum of Art from November 18, 2000, through February 11, 2001, Voyage of Discovery will illustrate the
extensive range of these creative investigations, most of which have never before been exhibited.
Metzker turned suddenly to landscape photography in 1985 during an autumn trip to Tuscany, where he
produced a series of works titled Feste di Foglie (Celebration of Leaves). The artist's joyous response to Italy
launched him on a subject he would pursue for more than a decade, resulting in one of the most poetic and
varied treatments of this subject in the history of photography. These lyrical photographs are a significant
departure from the bold, urban images for which Metzker previously had been known. Often choosing his
subjects because he perceives them as metaphors for the human situation, Metzker has challenged his own limits
in his landscape work and extended his reach far beyond traditional approaches to that genre, while creating
work that can be appreciated for its beauty, technical achievement, and philosophical underpinnings.
In the early 1990s, the artist traveled to locations as diverse as Colorado, Wisconsin, Turkey, and France, where
his exploration of landscape continued. The delicacy of line evident in the earliest Feste images gave way, as
the work progressed, to more complex views that blur the distinction between subject and background. Since
1994, Metzker has worked almost exclusively in the Moab, Utah. Less intimate than the images at the beginning
of the project, these recent photographs capture particularly dramatic vistas of western landscape.
Born in Minnesota in 1931, Metzker has made his home in Philadelphia since 1962. Prior to that, he studied with
Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design in Chicago. The artist has been the recipient of many
awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His
work is well represented in museums and public collections in both in the U.S. and abroad.
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