Matthew Leifheit

Interviews by Brainard Carey

Matthew Leifheit, Photo by Shala Miller

Matthew Leifheit is an American photographer, magazine editor, and professor based in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and the Yale School of Art, Leifheit is Editor-in-Chief of MATTE Magazine, the journal of emerging photography he has published since 2010. Leifheit’s photographs have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Aperture, TIME, and Artforum, and have been exhibited internationally. His work has been supported by residencies at the Corporation of Yaddo and The Watermill Center, receiving grants from the New York State Cultural Council and the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale, where he was awarded the Richard Benson Prize in 2017. He is currently full-time faculty at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.

Gay Archive was presented at Union College Crowell and West Galleries and at Massachusetts College of Art and Design‘s Brant Gallery in the fall of 2024. “Matthew Leifheit: Gay Chorus” will be on view at REVERB Gallery in Tampa, Florida through February 14th. Selections from Leifheit’s Gay Archive work will also be included in the Griffin Museum of Photography‘s upcoming exhibition “Nuclear Family,” on view January 17th—March 30th 2025.

Installation View of Matthew Leifheit: Queer Archive at Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s Brant Gallery, November 2025

John Pfleiderer Body Hair Collection* (undated, collected prior to Pfleiderer’s death in 1982) GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco, 2023 40×30” dye sublimation print with footnote.

Harvey Milk Underwear, GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco, 2023 40×30” dye sublimation print on aluminum

Pedro Zamora Gift Image, 2024 22.75’’ x 32.75’’ offset lithography on newsprint, edition of 1000 copies.