Obtain source code from  http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib/

{{{
  
  cd /some/dir
  tar zxvf ~/matplotlib-0.87.3.tar.gz
  cd matplotlib-0.87.3

  python setup.py build

  python setup.py install

}}}

Please refer to the o/s [wiki:ASAPInstall notes] for suggested packages which need to be installed to compile matplotlib