Sally Mann

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Lore & Background

Sally Mann was born on May 1, 1951, in Lexington, Virginia, the third of three children. Her father, Robert S. Munger, was a general practitioner, and her mother, Elizabeth Evans Munger, ran the bookstore at Washington and Lee University. Mann was introduced to photography by her father, who encouraged her interest; his 5x7 camera became the basis of her use of large-format cameras. She began to photograph when she was sixteen. Mann graduated from The Putney School in 1969, attended Bennington College and Friends World College, earned a BA summa cum laude from Hollins College in 1974, and an MA in creative writing in 1975. She has stated that her motive for taking up photography at Putney was to be alone in the darkroom with her boyfriend, and she has never had any formal training in photography nor read about photography. After graduation, Mann worked as a photographer at Washington and Lee University. In the mid-1970s she photographed the construction of its new law school building, which became the basis of her first solo exhibition in late 1977 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The Corcoran published a catalogue titled "The Lewis Law Portfolio"; some images had a surreal aspect and were included in her first book, Second Sight (1984). She found her trade with her book At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women (Aperture, 1988), which stimulated minor controversy. Her third collection, Immediate Family, first exhibited in 1990 and published as a monograph in 1992, brought wide recognition and controversy, with a federal prosecutor informing Mann that eight pictures could subject her to arrest. Mann considered these photographs natural through the eyes of a mother, and critics noted her vision as a welcome corrective to notions of youth as unalloyed sweetness and innocence. In the mid-1990s, Mann began photographing landscapes on wet plate collodion 8x10 inch glass negatives, using the same 100-year-old 8x10 format bellows view camera. These landscapes were first seen in Still Time (1994) and later featured in shows at Edwynn Houk Gallery: Sally Mann – Mother Land: Recent Landscapes of Georgia and Virginia (1997) and Deep South: Landscapes of Louisiana and Mississippi (1999). The wet plate process gave the photographs what the New York Times called "a swirling, ethereal image with a center of preternatural clarity," showing many flaws and artifacts. Mann has been the subject of two film documentaries: Blood Ties (1994), nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, and What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann (2005), nominated for an Emmy for Best Documentary in 2008.

Reader's Guide

Sally Mann's significance lies in her unflinching, large-format black and white photography that blurs the boundaries between private family life and public art. Her series Immediate Family, featuring her own children in states of repose and imaginative play, ignited debates about child nudity and artistic intent during a politically charged era. Critics and child psychiatrists defended her work as maternal curiosity rather than exploitation, while Time magazine named her 'America's Best Photographer' in 2001, praising the 'naked candor' and 'fervor of maternal curiosity and care.' Her later shift to wet plate collodion landscapes of the American South produced ethereal, flawed images that connected her to 19th-century photographic traditions. Mann's legacy includes her refusal to self-censor despite legal threats, her collaborative approach with her children, and her technical mastery of antique view cameras. Her work remains a touchstone for discussions on the ethics of photographing children, the nature of family narratives, and the expressive potential of historic photographic processes.

Did You Know?

• Mann has never had any formal training in photography and says she 'never read[s] about photography.'
• Her motive for taking up photography at Putney School was to be alone in the darkroom with her boyfriend.
• A federal prosecutor informed Mann that eight pictures from Immediate Family could subject her to arrest.
• Time magazine named her 'America's Best Photographer' in 2001.
• Her documentary Blood Ties (1994) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.