Mary Ellen Mark (1940–2015, American) documented marginalized people and communities for over four decades. Primarily working in black- and-white photography, Mark is one of the best-known photojournalists who humanized a less familiar America and turned her lens to other parts of the world. Her powerful, contextual images insist on a specific place and environment that shapes one’s identity. Many of her best-known photographs, such as those included in Affinities and Outliers, reflect a provocative style that captures her subject’s story in a single frame.
–Affinities and Outliers: Highlights from the University at Albany Fine Art Collections

American, born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1940

 

Mary Ellen Mark is a renowned photojournalist whose black and white photographs have captured the extremes of life around the world for over four decades. Her search for subjects has taken her across America and to the streets of Calcutta. With candid intimacy, she photographs her subjects in their environments, creating powerful contextual images that reflect the impact of place in the shaping of personal identity.

 

Mark has published sixteen books and exhibited worldwide. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

–Regarding Place: Photographs From The University Art Collections