Sally Mann

Sally Mann – The allure of the darkroom

Sally Mann was born on 1 May 1951 in Lexington in the US State of Virginia, the third child of a country doctor and a bookseller. Sally Mann was introduced to photography by her father who always supported her enthusiasm for the medium and it was her father’s 5x7 camera that laid the foundation for a lifelong preference for large formats. Mann produced her first pictures at the age of 16, her motifs taken then, as in her later career, from the world around her home. According to several accounts, she only began with photography because she wanted to spend time alone with her then friend at Putney School in the darkroom. After successfully graduating from school, despite such distractions, she attended Bennington College and the Friends World College, acquired a Bachelor of Arts at Hollins College (today Hollins University), and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing.

Intimate portraits of young girls as the central theme

Immediately after graduating, Sally Mann began working as a photographer for Washington and Lee University and held her first solo exhibition as soon as 1977 in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. Her first illustrated book, Second Sight, was published in 1984, in which some of her surrealistic early work was seen. Her true photographic theme was approached first, however, with her second volume, At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women, which caused minor controversy due to underage girls depicted at times in provocative poses. For Sally Mann herself, one model was particularly memorable for stubbornly refusing to move closer to her mother’s boyfriend during the shoot, so that the artist had no choice but to crop the girl’s elbow out of the picture. It later emerged that the girl had been abused by the man, which ultimately led to the mother shooting her boyfriend. 

Fierce criticism and great recognition

Sally Mann came fully into the public eye when she published her highly controversial illustrated book, Immediate Family. In it, she showed images of her own family life, including many pictures of her three growing children, many times completely unclothed. Mann found herself in the storm of a bitterly debated dispute conducted by groups as diverse as the Christian Broadcasting Network and the feminist group Women Against Pornography. In later publications, Mann turned increasingly to landscape photography, repeatedly seeking reference points in the American Civil War. Following a serious riding accident in 2006, she documented her back injuries, as she did later the muscular dystrophy of her husband Larry. Irrespective of the criticism from the right and left, Sally Mann has received prizes and honours from her photographic work, including the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction for her 2015 photo book Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs.