Ray K. Metzker
Couplets: Philadelphia

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Artist Ray K. Metzker American, 1931–2014

CultureAmerican

Titles

Couplets: Philadelphia

Date1968

(not assigned)Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 8 1/2 × 5 5/8 in. (21.6 × 14.3 cm)
Sheet: 9 5/16 × 7 in. (23.7 × 17.8 cm)

Credit LineGift of Joan Morgenstern

Object number2014.755

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionEducated in the late 1950s at the Institute of Design in Chicago, where experimentation was the watchword, Ray Metzker pushed the possibilities of photography through multiple exposures, composites, superimposition of negatives, solarization, and other strategies and techniques. In his Double-Frame and Couplets series, Metzker tested his command of the abstract, formal qualities of photography and, at the same time, allowed—even invited—the element of chance. Using an Olympus camera that exposed half-frame negatives on 35mm film, he shot sequential pairs of images that could be read as a single composition if printed together. By printing on high-contrast paper, he merged the black borders of each picture with the shadow areas of the images, masking the boundaries between what happened inside his camera and outside in the world.
ProvenanceThe artist; [Laurence Miller Gallery, New York]; [Paul M. Hertzmann, Inc., San Francisco]; purchased by Joan Morgenstern, Houston, 1999; given to MFAH, 2014.
Exhibition History“History of Photography I: Selections from the Museum's Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 1, 2014–February 22, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

verso in pencil " 26,2 cu camerell","68 KA s[circled] 6" [pencilled vertical and horizontal lines and arrows "3/5"

Signed on sheet verso in pencil: Ray K.Metzker

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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