Her self-portrait on the Sunday cover of New York Times magazine in 1993 was chosen by LIFE for a special edition entitled 100 Photographs that Changed the World[2] published in 2003 and again in 2011.

The artist has been nominated for many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize,[1] and has received dozens of citations, honors, and distinctions for her photographic works, and activism since the early 1990s.

[3] In 2012 Matuschka appeared in Rose Hartman's book Incomparable Women of Style, and in 2011 John Loengard included her in his monograph: The Age of Silver: Encounters with Great Photographers.

[5] Six months after her Mother's death, Matuschka ran away from home, changed her name to “Lisa Cross” and began working as a cocktail waitress in Far Rockaway, New York.

[citation needed] Anton Marco was an opera singer who toured Europe with Marlene Dietrich during the World War II, appeared in Woody Allen's film Zelig.

His wife, Mourine Marco—a Special Ed teacher—recognized Matuschka's raw talent and enrolled her in art classes, provided books from the local library, and suggested she become a life-sketching model.

[7] Mrs. Marco also urged her to visit museums and galleries in New York City, encouraged her to keep a journal, write poetry, document her dreams, and scribe her memoirs.

[7] As a teenager, Matuschka worked as a waitress, maid, house painter, wood splitter, electrician, fully attired Go-Go dancer, nude model, art assistant, and photo retoucher.

[9] During the two years she lived in the Berkshires, Matuschka worked as a photography/gallery assistant and apprentice to photojournalist Clemens Kalischer of The Image Gallery in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

In the mid 70s Snyder introduced her to William Silano in NYC and working alongside these two photographers, she learned the art of chemically toning and manipulating prints in the darkroom.

Matuschka was enrolled for the 1973 fall semester at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but at the last minute decided to matriculate at Prescott College—a small, private, liberal, school in Arizona founded by the Ford Foundation.

Extensive video and still footage of Matuschka working with Charles James (by Anton Perich) was exhibited at the National Arts Club (NYC) in a show entitled Beneath the Dress[19] in 2014.

In print, Matuschka has worked with some of the world's renowned photographers including Nick Knight for Dazed and Confused,[20] Robert Maxwell for More Magazine and Nadav Kander for his book, Beauty's Nothing.

Clarke's where she met and worked with a variety of writers and artists including: Salvador Dalí, Norman Wexler (who wrote Saturday Night Fever in an apartment across the hall from her flat), gonzo journalist Anthony Haden-Guest, writer, sports publisher and socialite George Plimpton, Michael O'Donoghue (Saturday Night Live), producer Bertrand Castelli, socialites Ted Otis and the Van de Bovenkamps and bestselling author Joseph DiMona.

Since the 1980s Matuschka's writings and poetry have appeared in dozens of publications and books worldwide from Glamour magazine, to Oxford anthologies and academic journals on a wide range of subjects.

To create her photographs, Matuschka assumes numerous roles as she explores the shapes formulated by her body, the various aspects of her persona, the connection between beauty and damage, and the history of photography itself.

In her androgyny works, she capitalizes on an ability to perform various roles of gender – trading on stereotypes, she's quite convincing, so by the time we have figured out the masquerade, we also realize we have been taken by it."

[28] "Matuschka has been known to bring a critical eye, considered thought, contrivance, artifice, and farce into what have previously been exclusively within the domain of personal expression and is savvy enough to add humor and irony to the substance of her shots.

"- Rick Cusick,[29] Whether working with others, alone, or with an assistant, Matuschka is the author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe stylist, and master printer of the pictures she creates.

In 1991, while undergoing chemotherapy, Matuschka discovered her mastectomy was unnecessary, that the doctor misread her pathology report and thelumpectomy he already performed was all the surgery required.

was an American activist organization based in New York City that employed direct actions to protest 'anti abortion sentiment', and endorsed pro-choice healthcare for both men and women.

!, and worked closely with Dr. Susan Shaw in designing a series of breast cancer awareness posters that would be distributed and wheat pasted[31] on buildings, trucks and barricades in the greater New York Area.

Art director Janet Froelich selected Matuschka's photo, Beauty out of Damage, showing her mastectomy and face—a decision that turned out to be controversial[35]—and sparked debate about the treatment, awareness and depiction of breast cancer throughout the world.

— Susan Ferrara[36]This historical publishing decision[37] made headline news for showing a "topless" cover girl on a mainstream magazine, and was viewed by many as ending the silence, shame and concealment for millions of women regarding their bodies and how they are portrayed by the media.

After The New York Times Sunday Magazine was published, Matuschka participated in many demonstrations throughout the country, including one sponsored by The Harley Davidson Motorcycle Club of Manhattan in conjunction with the American Cancer Society, and another one organized by GreenPeace on the Rainbow Warrior Ship in 1995.

— Carol Spiro, President Breast Cancer Action, Ottawa Ontario, Canada[40]In 1995, Greenpeace commissioned Matuschka to create a poster directed at Time Life to cease using chlorinated paper.

Greenpeace sent Matuschka to the Great Lakes Region, where the Rainbow Warrior ship was docked to speak with civilians, to hand out these informative political posters.

Time For Prevention is in the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum located in New York City, and won best environmental poster of 1996 by Graphis Inc.[41] Following Matuschka's breast reconstruction, CBS News Sunday Morning (with Martha Teichner[42]) aired a special program with her on September 23, 2013, titled The Model and the Mastectomy.

[43] Although known mostly as a photographer, model, and activist, Matuschka's abstract works on paper and large canvas remain a constant and essential element of her art.

The animate blobs, shapes and quasi-figural bits and pieces that populate her abstractions, for instance, owe a debt to a childhood fixation on the TV star, Soupy Sales, who would doodle haphazardly on a chalkboard as in a classroom, then ask his audience to seek out potential images of creatures or whatever lurking in his scribble-scrabble and complete them.