Herbert Matter

Abstract

For over half a century, Herbert Matter pioneered a form of graphic photography that transcended the narrow limitations of what had been deemed possible in the medium’s short history. Continually challenging the literal image and the fetishistic desire for pure prints uncorrupted by manipulation or artifice, Matter identified the photographic process as permeable, continually suggestive to experimentation and adaptation. It was by viewing the traditionally subservient role of the camera as only one of many routes to original imagery, that Matter liberated photography, permitting ideas, impressions, and inspirations to come from any quarter or realm