Anders Mattsson grew up in Norrköping and started there as apprentice and assistant at photographer Nils Beckman for seven years in the 1960s, when he also had his first own photo exhibitions at Norrköping's city library. After that he became a theater photographer at Norrköping's city theater for a couple of years. In the early 1970s he moved to Malmö, where he worked as a photographer for Malmö city theater in 1971-2007, and later Malmö Opera, Skåne Dance Theater and Malmö Symphony Orchestra with documentation of nearly 1,000 productions.