Matthew Thorsen Credit: Melanie Maria Goodreaux

We’re deeply saddened to report the death, from cancer, of  Seven Days’ longtime beloved staff photographer Matthew Thorsen. Though expected, his passing — on New Year’s Day 2019 — is nonetheless devastating to us all.

Matt had been taking pictures for Seven Days from the paper’s beginning in 1995. His quirky personality fit in with our scrappy startup, and his idiosyncratic vision defined the look of the paper for many years. We all particularly loved — still love — his black-and-white portraiture with distinctive black borders.

Over time the paper grew, technology altered the media landscape and photography switched to digital. Matt took the changes in stride, mastering new camera equipment along with the challenges and opportunities of full color.

Matt captured an enormous and perhaps representative cross-section of Vermonters, from politicians to skateboarders, from dairy farmers to punk rockers. He shot friends and family, too, constantly. Basically, the camera was an extension of his body; it seemed to be Matt’s way of communicating, and communing, with the world.

Look for a more extensive remembrance of Matt in the January 9 issue of Seven Days. Meantime, you can watch, or re-watch, Eva Sollberger’s remarkable Stuck in Vermont video, made last October, of a conversation with Matt about living and dying. Sollberger produced another video about Thorsen’s “Sound Proof” band photo exhibit in 2011.

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You can also view the images in “Thorever,” a selected retrospective last summer of Matt’s photos at the BCA Center, here.

Please feel free to leave comments on this post about Matt, or email them to pamela@sevendaysvt.com.

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Pamela Polston is a contributing arts and culture writer and editor. She cofounded Seven Days in 1995 with Paula Routly and served as arts editor, associate publisher and writer. Her distinctive arts journalism earned numerous awards from the Vermont Press Association, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the New England Newspaper & Press Association. Pamela was inducted into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2015. In 2021, the Vermont Arts Council presented her with the Walter Cerf...

13 replies on “Seven Days Photographer Matthew Thorsen Dies at 51”

  1. My heart is broken for you all !! I remember when Matt was little he was soo funny <3 Love and support to all the family <3

  2. I’m a new reader but his work is wonderful, the video of him shows how fun and hilarious he was. What a loss for the community.

  3. Matt came out to Colchester to take pictures of me and my kids and while he got us into many creative angles and poses, he discussed ideas of Buddhism, musicology, Tibet, children, hitch hiking, cities vs. the country and art. I wanted to score some points on something about photography, but he blew my mind with all these ideas while snapping away….that I forgot all about that stuff. He wowed us all by his humor, creativity and warmth — what a happening human being! RIP. The picture he went for was of us in a tree where I had swung the kids in from infancy — Matt had a connection with the cosmos.

    Erik Kaarla

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