People Matching Artworks

Austrian photographer Stefan Draschan spends hours hanging around museums looking for curious coincidences where visitors perfectly match the paintings they were looking at.

The project began accidentally one summer in 2014, when Draschan saw a guy sitting in front of a Georges Braque in Berlin. It was his first match. Six months later in Munich, he saw another guy who looked like the huge Greek vase behind him. When he discovered a woman sitting in front of a Vermeer in Vienna, Draschan had a good idea what his next project would be. Draschan began to systematically look out for more of these coincidences.

“After photographing the same museums for the past couple of years, Draschan has developed a firm grasp of their layouts, and can almost predict the pattern patrons will follow”, writes Katherine McGrath on Architectural Digest. “If he spots a subject across the room, he will follow them until they align with a work he has already worked out in his mind. The resulting works play with color, form, pattern, and size to emphasize the corresponding elements between the art and the subject.”