Acclaimed American documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark made

her first iconic photographs when living in Turkey on a Fulbright

Fellowship in the mid-1960s. Her pictures of Bombay brothels, shot in

the late 1970s, were published in 1981 in Falkland Road , a book that

became legendary and confirmed her status as one of the most prominent

and provocative documentary photographers working today.

Mark's pictures are a celebration of humanity in its most diverse and

eccentric forms. Circuses, gypsy camps, children yearning for adulthood,

the poor and destitute are some of her recurring themes. Mark has the

unique ability to capture gestures and expressions that translate the

intense emotions of her subjects. Compassionate but never literal, her

pictures can be humorous, tragic, enigmatic, shocking, and oftentimes

all of these simultaneously.

This book presents for the first time a selection of the strongest pictures

of Mark's forty-year career, drawing from emblematic series such as

"Falkland Road," "Indian Circus," and "Twins," as well as many previously

unpublished images. The photographs are accompanied by an introduction

by Weston Naef and a text by Mark that provides context and

behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Together her images and words provide

intimate insights into the lives of others, presenting compelling stories

of human strength and suffering.

Mary Ellen Mark (b.1940) is one of the most famous and acclaimed

photographers of today. After completing a graduate degree at the

Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, she

began working as a freelance photographer in the mid-1960s and was

quickly given magazine assignments. In 1976 she documented the

women's maximum-security ward of Oregon State Mental Hospital

(Ward 81), and in 1978 she photographed prostitutes in the brothels of

Falkland Road in Bombay, and published award-winning books on

these subjects. She became a member of the prestigious photographic

agency Magnum in 1977, and left the organization in 1982 to work

independently. Since the 1980s she has photographed and published

books on subjects such as runaway teenagers in Seattle, Mother

Teresa's Missions in Calcutta, circuses in India, and twins in America.

Mark has received numerous grants and awards, including three

National Endowment for the Art grants, two Robert F. Kennedy

Journalism Awards, the Creative Arts Awards Citation from Brandeis

University, the Dr. Erich Salomon Preis Award, the George W. Polk

Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and five honorary doctorates, including

one from the University of Pennsylvania. Mark is represented by the

Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City, and the Fahey/Klein Gallery

in Los Angeles. Her pictures have been published in the New Yorker , the

New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair , and the original Life magazine,

among other publications. She lives in New York City.