BIOGRAPHY
Born 1954 in New Jersey, Matuschka is an internationally renowned photographer, author, activist, and model. Her self-portrait on the Sunday cover of The New York Times Magazine in 1993 was chosen by LIFE for a special edition entitled 100 Photographs that Changed the World published in 2003 and again in 2011. The artist has been nominated for many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, and has received dozens of citations, honors, and distinctions for her photographic works, and activism since the early 1990s. In 2011 John Loengard included her in his monograph: The Age of Silver: Encounters with Great Photographers.
Matuschka began her modeling and photography career simultaneously in Bergen County NJ in 1970, posing for regional photographers and working alongside them in their darkrooms. At the age of 17 she moved to the Berkshires to attend Windsor Mountain Prep School and apprenticed with Clemens Kalischer. Soon thereafter, she began her (life-long) mentorship with Don Snyder who taught her the art of chemically manipulating prints. In 1974 she moved to NYC to attend SVA and continued posing for photographers on assignment for Milton Glaser’s Push Pin Studios. Her work as a fine art model for renowned photographers was essential in the development of her own practice as a fine art photographer later in life.
Currently, Matuschka lives in New York City and is working on her archives and books. Her photographs are featured in the permanent collections of many prominent museums such as The Museum of the City of New York, The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Photographic Museum of Helsinki, and more, as well as in the private collections of institutions such as Northwestern University, Broadway Video Enterprises, (Lorne Michaels’ Collection), The Center for the Study of Political Graphics and elsewhere. Her photographs continue to be published and exhibited in Europe, Canada and the United States regularly. Matuschka’s practice today involves experimenting with printing and painting techniques both in the digital and analog mediums. She is an active philanthropic patron of wildlife foundations, and is involved in rescuing, rehabilitating and housing both wild and domestic birds for over 20 years. Her roommate is a 3-year-old Mexican conure named Pistachio.
"Art can function in any of four general realms: the personal, the political,the spiritual, or the aesthetic. And occasionally, it can demonstrate an integration of all fours. Matuschka's art is such work. It is hard to define and challenging to view. It includes extraordinary vulnerability, fierce, anger... and much beauty."
– Peter Schlessinger, Curator, New Art Center
Matuschka at Pace Gallery, 2023