Award-winning documentary photographer and photojournalist Mary Ellen Mark came to campus last month to give a slide lecture as part of "Mary Ellen Mark: 30 Years," the current exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery. It was a homecoming of sorts.

Mark, a Penn alumna, developed her love for photography at the University. She received a bachelor's degree in painting and art history in 1962, and a master's degree in photojournalism from the Annenberg School for Communication in 1964.

"From the very first class I took at Annenberg, I knew that photography was my vocation," she said. "I attended graduate school on a Walter Annenberg scholarship, and I thank him for that gift."

Throughout her 30-year career, Mark has focused on the "unfamous." From blind children in the Ukraine to homeless teen-agers in the United States, she brings out the common humanity in her subjects.

"Mary Ellen Mark: 30 Years" displays more than 100 of Mark's black-and-white pictures. The exhibition includes photographs of rural America, heroin addicts in London, and street children all over the world, as well as photos taken during Mark's trips to India, where she visited 16 circuses. The exhibition also features 10 previously unpublished photographs that Mark selected for the Arthur Ross Gallery.

"The works she chose to print for us, like all her images, tell the whole story while also reflecting recurrent themes: homelessness, confinement, the circus, and people from all walks of life," said Dilys Winegrad, director of the gallery. "In the new photographs, the artist returns to a family she's documented before; portrays youngsters in Ireland and the Bronx; and presents images from the National Circus of Vietnam. People appear together with their animals or the plaything that provides comfort."

Mark began her photographic career in 1965, when she was granted a Fulbright scholarship to photograph in Turkey. She returned to New York a year later and began to document anything that interested her: Central Park , the early days of the women's movement, body builders, the Psychedelic Burlesque.

In 1967, Mark was contracted to make stills for the movie "Alice's Restaurant." Since then, she has worked on many films, such as "The Day of the Locust," "Apocalypse Now," "Ragtime," "Silkwood," "Carnal Knowledge" and "Catch-22."

During her lecture, Mark noted that she always tries to win the confidence of the people she photographs. This allows her to get close to her subjects.

"One of my assignments was to take pictures of prostitutes in the Falkland Road section of Bombay," she explained. "I started wandering the streets of the district, because I knew that I had to gain access and the trust of the women I wanted to photograph. I was tenacious, and finally, after three months, I was able to be accepted."

Mark was quick to add, however, that it's possible to get too close to a subject. She found this out while making stills for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." During the shoot, she had the opportunity to photograph one group of women in a hospital, day after day.

"Those women in the hospital were filed away and forgotten," she said. "Taking pictures of them taught me to know how far you can go--how close you can get to your subject before you have to stop."

Mark noted that she often chooses subjects that cross cultural boundaries, as demonstrated in her series of portraits of street children. In 1983, she had an assignment from Life magazine to take pictures of homeless youth. She chose Seattle as her base, because she wanted to show that if one found kids living on the streets of Seattle, one would find them in every city. A later assignment took her to Khartoum, in Sudan, where she photographed children who were drug addicts. "Just like the kids in Seattle, only younger," she said.

To avoid cliches in her photography, Mark does a great deal of research before taking on an assignment. That's why in a series on poverty, she photographed three brothers, ranging in age from 8 to 13, who were sucking their thumbs.

"Taking pictures of people in poverty is difficult, because of so many cliches," Mark said. "Poverty is about major societal problems, like dysfunctional families, and I think that showing three older boys sucking their thumbs conveys the power of poverty, beyond cliche."

Following Mark's lecture, a reception was held in her honor at the Arthur Ross Gallery. At the reception, Annenberg School Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson told those in attendance that it was clear Mary Ellen Mark was always interested in the human beings she photographed, because during her slide lecture, she identified everyone in her pictures by name.

Mark's work has been published and exhibited internationally. Her books include "Passport," "Ward 81," "Falkland Road," "Mother Teresa's Missions of Charity in Calcutta," "Streetwise," and "The Photo Essay." She has received three National Endowment for the Arts grants and many photography awards. "Mary Ellen Mark: 30 Years" remains on view in the Arthur Ross Gallery through June 9.

Return to Compass Features for May 7, 1996