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Acclaimed American documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark made
her first iconic photographs when living in Turkey on a Fulbright
Fellowship in the mid-1960s. Her pictures of Bombay brothels, shot in
the late 1970s, were published in 1981 in Falkland Road, a book that
became legendary and confirmed her status as one of the most prominent
and provocative documentary photographers working today.
Mark's pictures are a celebration of humanity in its most diverse and
eccentric forms. Circuses, gypsy camps, children yearning for adulthood,
the poor and destitute are some of her recurring themes. Mark has the
unique ability to capture gestures and expressions that translate the
intense emotions of her subjects. Compassionate but never literal, her
pictures can be humorous, tragic, enigmatic, shocking, and oftentimes
all of these simultaneously.
This book presents for the first time a selection of the strongest pictures
of Mark's forty-year career, drawing from emblematic series such as
"Falkland Road," "Indian Circus," and "Twins," as well as many previously
unpublished images. The photographs are accompanied by an introduction
by Weston Naef and a text by Mark that provides context and
behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Together her images and words provide
intimate insights into the lives of others, presenting compelling stories
of human strength and suffering.
Mary Ellen Mark (b.1940) is one of the most famous and acclaimed
photographers of today. After completing a graduate degree at the
Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, she
began working as a freelance photographer in the mid-1960s and was
quickly given magazine assignments. In 1976 she documented the
women's maximum-security ward of Oregon State Mental Hospital
(Ward 81), and in 1978 she photographed prostitutes in the brothels of
Falkland Road in Bombay, and published award-winning books on
these subjects. She became a member of the prestigious photographic
agency Magnum in 1977, and left the organization in 1982 to work
independently. Since the 1980s she has photographed and published
books on subjects such as runaway teenagers in Seattle, Mother
Teresa's Missions in Calcutta, circuses in India, and twins in America.
Mark has received numerous grants and awards, including three
National Endowment for the Art grants, two Robert F. Kennedy
Journalism Awards, the Creative Arts Awards Citation from Brandeis
University, the Dr. Erich Salomon Preis Award, the George W. Polk
Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and five honorary doctorates, including
one from the University of Pennsylvania. Mark is represented by the
Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City, and the Fahey/Klein Gallery
in Los Angeles. Her pictures have been published in the New Yorker, the
New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and the original Life magazine,
among other publications. She lives in New York City.
