Collection 1950s–1970s

Ray K. Metzker. Untitled. 1966 411

Gelatin silver print, 12 3/8 × 15 7/8" (31.5 × 40.3 cm). Purchase. © 2025 Ray K. Metzker

Artist, Ray K. Metzker: We never fix on one thing; you have this series of takes. Vision is, is really much more active.

What occurred to me Is that when you look, your eye is moving about all the time. I don't see you in just one exposure. I'm moving very rapidly, and I can pick up on the detail of your earlobe, come to your nose, come to your glasses, and I am constructing an image of you. So this idea of a photograph that freezes everything seems...a misconception.

Photograph is a life, you know. It's got to be about life. Maybe spring of 1964, certainly 62 and all of 63—somewhere in there, the single image was losing its appeal for me. That it didn't tell me enough, or it didn't do enough for me.But then I started making some pieces where I was just cutting out the contact prints and pasting a number of them on a piece.

And so by 66, I was really into the composite, because I just saw all sorts of wonderful coincidences where, something in one frame is relating to the frame next to it.