COLLECTION NAME:
The AMICA Library
Record
AMICA ID:
CMA_.1995.198
AMICA Library Year:
1998
Object Type:
Photographs
Creator Name:
Mann, Sally
Creator Name:
Mann, Sally
Creator Nationality:
North American; American
Creator Role:
Artist
Creator Dates/Places:
1951
Biography:
Sally Mann American, 1951-Explorations of childhood, adolescence, and puberty characterize the imagery of Sally Mann (born Sally Munger), who first came to public attention for her series on pre-teenage girls, published in 1988 as At Twelve: Portraits ofYoung Women. Since 1984 her images have focused on family scenes centered around her three children, Emmet, Jessie, and Virginia. Working in black and white with a large-format view camera, Mann is both documentarian and storyteller, chronicling her children's physical and emotional maturity as she photographs their everyday mishaps and playtime adventures. The children often appear nude, without modesty, and the candor of her subjects has sparked controversy over the photographs as part of the public domain and over issues of childhood sexuality and freedom. It has also raised debates about Mann herself, as she moves between roles as artist and mother. Mann studied English and creative writing at Hollins College in Virginia (B.A., 1974; M.A., 1975). Shetook photography courses at Praestegaard Film School (1971), the Aegean School of Fine Arts (1972), Apeiron (1973), and the Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop (1973). Among her awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1973, 1976), the Friends of Photography (1974), the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (1982), the National Endowment for the Arts (1982, 1988, 1992), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1987), the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (1989), and Artists inthe Visual Arts (1989). Her publications include Second Sight: The Photographs of Sally Mann (1983), Immediate Family (1992), and Halloween (1993). Mann has shown in one-person exhibitions at the Southeastern Center of Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem (1988), the Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego (1989), and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art (1990). In 1994 the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, organized a traveling exhibition titled Still Time. Mann lives in her native Lexington, Virginia. A.W.
Gender:
F
Creator Birth Place:
Lexington, VA
Creator Name-CRT:
Sally Mann
Title:
Black Eye
Title Type:
Primary
View:
Full View
Creation Date:
1991
Creation Start Date:
1991
Creation End Date:
1991
Materials and Techniques:
gelatin silver print
Classification Term:
Photography
Dimensions:
Sheet: 50.1cm x 60.7cm, Image: 46.8cm x 58.5cm
AMICA Contributor:
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Owner Location:
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
ID Number:
1995.198
Credit Line:
Gift of Friends of Photography
Inscriptions:
Written in pencil on verso: "Black Eye / Sally Mann [signed], ? 1991 / 8/25 / ed {25 20 x 24 / 25 16x20 / 25 8 x 10"
Copyright:
Copyright ? 1991 Sally Mann
Rights:
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Image: Copyright The Cleveland Museum of Art
Context:
In 1984, Sally Mann began photographing her three children, Jesse, Virginia, and Emmett in and around their summer house near Lexington, Virginia. The children wear bathing suits, light summer clothes or no clothes at all and their self-assured posturing is spellbinding. Mann's often controversial photographs transform the ordinary things every mother has seen, a wet bed, a bloody nose, young girls posing as women, into troubling, yet fascinating narratives that expose parental fears along with the vulnerability and defiance of children. In Black Eye, Mann focuses on Virginia's upper torso and face, with its bruised eye (resulting from a mishap with a hammock), as the child dozes off in a sheltering wing chair. This image fascinated the artist for a long time, because it reminded her of Victorian post-mortem photographs, and indeed, the serene face gently bathed in a soft light, folded hands, and oddly arranged hair cause one to wonder if the child is actually dead or alive.
Related Image Identifier Link:
CMA_.1995.198.tif
Initial Sort:
Mann, Sally
Black Eye
