Sally Mann

(written 2002) Sally Mann was born in Lexington, Virginia, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Today she still lives in Lexington with her husband and three children, Jessie, Emmet and Virginia, and her photography is steeped in the people and landscapes of the region. Mann shoots with a large-format 8x10 camera to create richly detailed, finegrained black-and-white images which blend a vaguely antiquarian look with an eerie intimacy. Mann says of her work, "When the good pictures come, we hope they tell truths, but truths 'told slant,' just as Emily Dickinson commanded."

Sally Mann earned both acclaim and notoriety with her second published collection, At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women (1988). Those portraits captured the confusing emotions and developing sexual identities of girls at that transitional age, one foot still in childhood and one foot in the adult world. Her next collection, Immediate Family (1992), brought even more acclaim for its hauntingly beautiful tableaux, and even more notoriety for its nude shots of her own preadolescent children. Conservative critics called the images "child pornography" and further evidence of the art world's amoral decadence. Fortunately, these clueless condemnations haven't hurt her career. Her photographs appear in most major American art museums, and her travelling exhibitions have been in great demand. In her more recent work, Sally Mann has turned to unpopulated rural Virginia landscapes.

ARTICLES & REVIEWS

Noelle Oxenhandler looks at the family photography of Sally Mann for Nerve (1998). At the bottom of the page, click to read Sally Mann's response to the article.

David Levi Strauss reviews Sally Mann's recent landscape photography in ArtForum (February 1998).

Cari Marshall reviews Sally Mann's exhibition at Austin Museum of Art-Laguna Gloria, and salvages Mann's work from the sensationalism of conservative christian protests and civil libertarian defenses. From the Austin Chronicle (September 1998).

Austin Chronicle editor Louis Black responds to a reader complaint regarding a Sally Mann photograph that appeared in a previous issue. The reader considered the photograph to be child pornography; Black disgrees strongly, but in retrospect regrets being rude to the caller (October 1998).

Elsa Dorfman reviews Sally Mann's At Twelve for The Women's Review of Books (1989). Dorfman complains bizarrely that Mann's photographs look too much like Calvin Klein ads, when she'd prefer they look more like Esprit or Benetton ads.

Mt. Holyoke's College Street Journal reviews Sally Mann's Still Time exhibition (April 1999).

Richard Goldstein wades into a christian conservative protest against Barnes & Noble, and discusses the work of David Hamilton and Sally Mann, whose photographs of nude children and adolescents incited the protesters. From the Village Voice (March 1998).

The online magazine Nerve conducted a roundtable discussion on "the zoning of child sexuality in art, advertising and the American household. Question #3 asked the participants about the work of photographers Jock Sturges, Sally Mann and David Hamilton.(1998)

Civil libertarian groups denounce right-wing christian protests against bookstores stocking books by Jock Sturges and David Hamilton: National Coalition for Freedom of Expression; Institute for First Amendment Studies; American Civil Liberties Union.

GALLERIES & IMAGES

The Edwynn Houk Gallery features a slideshow of Sally Mann's Deep South photos along with short essay on the exhibition.

The Sweet Briar College department of Art History displays the Sally Mann photograph Shiva at Whistle Creek along with a short article on Mann's life and work.

Tuscany Gallery reproduces three Sally Mann photographs online.

Orville Clark reviews Sally Mann's 1997 exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery, with two thumbnailed Sally Mann landscape photographs.

The Maier Museum of Art displays the Sally Mann photograph New Mothers along with a brief text on Mann's technique.

The Greg Kucera Gallery features a page devoted to Sally Mann, with extensive list of exhibitions and museum collections and four photographs.

The Bayly Art Museum features an untitled Sally Mann photograph and short text to accompany Mann's 1999 exhibition.

Blind Spot displays the Sally Mann photograph Picnic and an untitled landscape.

The Robert Klein displays two Sally Mann photographs online.

The Community Research Initiave on AIDS features an untitled Sally Mann adult male nude photograph for sale through the Edwynn Houk Gallery.

CIAC displays the Sally Mann photograph Black Eye accompanied by a short text by Hilde Teerlinck.

The Jackson Fine Art Gallery displays several Sally Mann photographs from the Motherland and Deep South series.

Afterimage Gallery has an untitled Sally Mann photograph from At Twelve for sale.

The Sally Mann photograph Windows of Desire.