Artist of the Day, November 18, 2021: Mary Ellen Mark, an American photographer (#1421)

 Mary Ellen Mark (1940 – 2015) was an American photographer known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were "away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes".

Mary Ellen Mark had 18 collections of her work published, most notably Streetwise and Ward 81, Her work was exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide and widely published in Life, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, New York Times, and Vanity Fair. She was a member of Magnum Photos between 1977 and 1981. She received numerous accolades, including three Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2014 Lifetime Achievement in Photography Award from the George Eastman House and the Outstanding Contribution Photography Award from the World Photography Organisation.

Mary Ellen Mark was born and raised in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. and began photographing with a Box Brownie camera at age nine. She attended Cheltenham High School, where she was head cheerleader and exhibited a knack for painting and drawing. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and art history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962. After graduating, she worked briefly in the Philadelphia city planning department, then returned for a master's degree in photojournalism at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, which she received in 1964. The following year, Mark received a Fulbright Scholarship to photograph in Turkey for a year, from which she produced her first book, Passport (1974). While there, she traveled to photograph England, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain.

In 1966, she moved to New York City, where over the next several years she photographed demonstrations in opposition to the Vietnam War, the women's liberation movement, transvestite culture, and Times Square, developing a sensibility, according to one writer, "away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes". Her photography addressed social issues such as homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction, and prostitution. Children are a reoccurring subject throughout much of Mark's work. She described her approach to her subjects: "I’ve always felt that children and teenagers are not "children," they’re small people. I look at them as little people and I either like them or I don’t like them. I also have an obsession with mental illness. And strange people who are outside the borders of society." Mark also said "I’d rather pull up things from another culture that are universal, that we can all relate to...There are prostitutes all over the world. I try to show their way of life." and that "I feel an affinity for people who haven't had the best breaks in society. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence".Mark was well known for establishing strong relationships with her subjects. For Ward 81 (1979), she lived for six weeks with the patients in the women’s security ward of Oregon State Hospital, and for Falkland Road (1981), she spent three months befriending the prostitutes who worked on a single long street in Bombay. Her project "Streets of the Lost" with writer Cheryl McCall, for Life, produced her book Streetwise (1988) and was developed into the documentary film Streetwise, directed by her husband Martin Bell and with a soundtrack by Tom Waits.

She was also a unit photographer on movie sets, shooting production stills of more than 100 movies, including Arthur Penn's Alice's Restaurant (1969), Mike Nichols' Catch-22 (1970) and Carnal Knowledge (1971), Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), and Baz Luhrmann's Australia (2008).[3][10] For Look magazine, she photographed Federico Fellini shooting Satyricon (1969).

She worked with film, using a wide range of cameras in various formats, from 35 mm, 120/220, 4×5-inch view camera, and a 20×24 Polaroid Land Camera, primarily in black and white using Kodak Tri-X film.

She published 18 books of photographs and contributed to publications that include Life, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, New York Times, and Vanity Fair;. Mark was transparent with the subjects of her photography about her intent to use what she saw in the world for her art, about which she has said "I just think it's important to be direct and honest with people about why you're photographing them and what you're doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul."

Mary Ellen Mark joined Magnum Photos in 1977 and left in 1981, joining Archive Pictures and then in 1988 opened her own agency. She served as a guest juror for photography call for entries at The Center for Fine Art Photography and taught workshops at the International Center of Photography in New York, in Mexico and at the Center for Photography at Woodstock.

She was the cowriter, associate producer and still photographer for the feature film American Heart (1992), starring Jeff Bridges and Edward Furlong, and directed by Martin Bell. It depicts a gruff ex-convict who struggles to get his life back on track.

© 2021. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Mary Ellen Mark or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only

 Ms. Mary Ellen Mark

 Mary Ellen Mark at work

 Santa Claus Having Lunch, New York, 1963

 Street Child, Turkey, 1965

 Alan Arkin & Elliott Gould on the set of Little Murders, 1970

Scatman Crothers and the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
posing for their picture on location at the Oregon State Hospital, 1974

  Laurie in the Bathtub, Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, 1976

 Feet in restraints, Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital. Salem, Oregon, 1976

 Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy. Los Angeles, 1978

Falkland Road, Mumbai, India, 1978

 John Belushi,  Joliet correction Center, 1979

 Woody Allen on his balcony, New York, 1979

 Mother Teresa Tender Sick Man, Calcuta, 1980

  Two other children profiled in "Streetwise" were White Junior and Justin, 1983

 "Rat" and Mike with a Gun, Seattle, Washington, 1983

 Tiny blowing a bubble, Seattle, 1983

 Children playing gangsters. South Dallas, 1988

 Arjun with his chimpanzee Mira, Great Royal Circus, Gujarat, India, 1989

Child Acrobat with Two Children in Peacock Costumes
Great Royal Circus, Himmatnagar, India, 1989

Contortionist with Her Puppy Sweety, Great Raj Kamal Circus
Upleta, India, 1989

Hippopotamus and performer, Great Rayman Circus. Chennai, India, 1989

 Amanda and her cousin Amy. Valdese, North Carolina, 1990

Leprosy patient with her nurse, National Hansen's Disease Center
Carville, Louisiana, 1990

Ram Prakash Singh with His Elephant Shyama, Great Golden Circus
Ahmedabad, India, 1990

 Craig Scamardo and Cheyloh Mather,  Boerne Rodeo, Texas, 1991

Clayton Moore, the former Lone Ranger, at home. Los Angeles, 1992

Diamond as a mermaid on Halloween at the South Bronx HELP Shelter
New York, 1993

 Johnny Cash, 1996

 Pride March, 1997

 Sue Gallo Baugher and Faye Gallo at the Twins Festival. Twinsburg, Ohio, 1998

Erin fighting with hermother, Pat. Seattle, 1999

Cayla and Mylee Simmermon, 10 years old, Mylee older by 2 minutes
Twinsburg, Ohio, 2001

 Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, 2001

Tim Burton directs Paul Giamatti during the filming of Planet of the Apes, 2001

Walter and David Oliver, 65 years old, Walter older by 8 minutes
Twinsburg, Ohio, 2001

 Don and Dave Wolf, Twinsburg, Ohio, 2002

Heather and Kelsey Dietrick, 7 years old, Kelsey older by 66 minutes, 2002

 Michael Bloomberg holding Xavier, 2004

 Extras on the set of Fur, 2005

 Thomas getting his bow tie fixed. New Orleans, 2015