Synopses & Reviews
The unspoken poetry of our nation revealed by an American master.
The first collection of the extensive and superlative work realized by Mary Ellen Mark in the United States, Mary Ellen Mark is composed of many previously unpublished images, as well as photographs from several of her best-known projects. From "Streetwise" to "The Damm Family," Mary Ellen Mark includes the most iconic images from these groundbreaking stories, as well as powerful, never-before-seen photographs Mark accomplished in subsequent years. She makes a deeply felt commitment to her subjects, and her empathy and humanity come through in every image.
Mark is unsurpassed at shaping not only the odd but the everyday into genuinely surprising visual icons. With an eye for symbolism and a gift for meticulous composition, she is drawn to a variety of spectacles and situations, and demonstrates a particular affinity for children. Her elegantly revealing imagery creates a fascinating portrait of our complex, amusing, and occasionally unsettling country.
Synopsis
Mark works in a classic documentary mode: her work imprints itself on viewers in the way that only great photography can. --Harpers Bazaar Recently voted by the readers of American Photography as their favorite woman photographer of all time, Mary Ellen Mark has made some of America's most iconic photographs. She is unsurpassed at shaping both the odd and the everyday into genuinely surprising photographs that subtly yet powerfully challenge our preconceptions or intensify our convictions. Mary Ellen Mark's poetic and at times disquieting photographs form a fascinating portrait of a complex, amusing, and occasionally unsettling country and its people.
About the Author
Mary Ellen Mark is one of the most important photographers of this century. She lives in New York City.