Ray K. Metzker, Photographer

Thursday, April 7 - Hear a lecture by photographer Ray K. Metzker and Photography Curator Keith F. Davis at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Time: 6 to 7 p.m. Where: Atkins Auditorium

Photo by Ray K. Metzker from his Atlantic City Series

This is a rare opportunity to meet and hear one of the most important and influential figures of modern photography, Ray K. Metzker. He and Curator Keith Davis will discuss Metzker’s career and its evolution, where his ideas come from and the appeal and challenge of particular subjects.

Works by Ray K. Metzker, one of the most original and influential photographers of the last half century, will be on view until June 5, 2011, at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. They reveal Metzker’s ability to turn ordinary subjects, including the urban experience and nature, into the visual poetry of the finely crafted black-and-white print.

Metzker, a septuagenarian, is greatly admired for his passionate engagement with both photography and the world. He has explored the use of high contrast and selective focus, the potentials of multiple and composite images, and the infinite gradations of daylight, from dazzling white to inky shadow.

“This is great and lasting work – the very best of a classic form of American modernism,” said Keith F. Davis, senior curator of photography at the Nelson-Atkins. “Metzker has led a life of deep devotion to understanding the potential, challenge and pleasure of photographic seeing.

“In so doing, he has transcended any simple notion of technical experimentation or formalism to illuminate a vastly larger human realm—one of uncertainty, isolation and vulnerability, as well as of unexpected beauty, grace and transcendence.”

Thanks to a major gift from the Hall Family Foundation, the Nelson-Atkins now has the largest holding of Metzker’s work (92 prints) in the United States.