1960-

After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and receiving a diploma in 1991, Vera Lutter moved to New York and studied at School of Visual Art's Photography and Related Media program where she received an MFA in 1995. 

Inspired by the city's presence, light, and architecture, Lutter began experimenting with photography. In order to capture an immediate and direct imprint of her experience, Lutter decided to turn the room in which she lived into a large pinhole camera—thereby transforming the space that contained her personal experience into the apparatus that would capture an image of it. Through a simple pinhole instead of an optically carved lens, the outside world flooded the interior of the room and projected an inverted image onto the opposite wall. Exposing directly onto wall-size sheets of photographic paper, the artist achieved large-scale black and white images. Maintaining her concept of directness and least possible alteration, Lutter decided to retain the negative image and refrain from multiplication or reproduction.