Mary Ellen Mark (1940-2015) was born in Philadelphia and achieved worldwide visibility through her photographs.
For over four decades, she traveled extensively to make influential pictures that reflect a high degree of humanism. During her lifetime, her photo essays and portraits were exhibited worldwide and appeared in numerous publications, including LIFE, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker.
Her photo essay on runaway children in Seattle became the basis of the Academy Award–nominated film Streetwise, directed and photographed by her husband Martin Bell, and was published in book form in 1988.
Mark published 21 books, including Ward 81 (Simon & Schuster, 1979), Falkland Road (Knopf, 1981), Streetwise (second printing, Aperture, 1992), American Odyssey (Aperture, 1999), Twins (Aperture, 2003), Exposure (Phaidon, 2005), Seen Behind the Scene (Phaidon, 2009), Prom (Getty, 2012), and Tiny: Streetwise Revisited (Aperture, 2015).
In addition to producing her own work, Mark taught photography workshops for nearly 30 years, most notably in Oaxaca, Mexico. Her thoughts on teaching are captured in one of her final titles, Mary Ellen Mark on the Portrait and the Moment (Aperture’s Photography Workshop Series, 2015).
Mark's work is in included in the permanent collections of:
Whitney Museum of American Art, The International Center of Photography, NY
Bibliotheque nationale de France, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
California Museum of Photography, Riverside
Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington
Detroit Institute of Arts
Centro Fotografico Alvarez Bravo, Oaxaca
El Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
The Hague Museum of Photography
J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Marguilies Collection, Miami
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Seattle Art Museum
The Vincent Van Gogh Foundation, Arles
The Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Her honors and awards included a Fulbright Scholarship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Cornell Capa Award, and the 2014 Lifetime Achievement in Photography Award from George Eastman House.
source: howardgreenberg.com