Sally Mann
1992
Vinland

Silver print
8 1/4x10 1/4 in (21x26 cm)
 
Swann Galleries - New York
Courtesy of Swann Galleries (Auction, May 15, 2008, #2146, Lot 565)
 
With Mann's signature, title, date, edition notations, "6/25," and annotations, in pencil, on verso.
 
Sally Mann ranks as one of the most important artists of the late twentieth-early twenty-first century. When 'Immediate Family' was published, in 1992, Mann found herself at the center of a national controversy. The provocative images featuring her three children, who appeared naked in many of the pictures, were seen as an attack on decency and a violation of childhood innocence.
 
Mann's everyday images of her domestic life are both intimate and recognizable, recalling a memory or dream. However, given the subject matter of her photographs, they were often misinterpreted. In the introduction, Mann clarified her dual roles, as a photographer and a mom: 'These are photographs of my children. . . any of these pictures are intimate, some are fictions and some are fantastic, but most are of ordinary things every mother has seen. I take pictures when they are bloodied or sick or naked or angry. They dress up, they pout and posture, they paint their bodies, they dive like others in the dark river.'
 
This image of Jesse is sublime and ethereal, a luminous depiction of a girl enjoying a summer''s day. Not incidentally, it is also an elegant coming-of-age portrait. Radiant, tender and graceful, Mann''s depicts her daughter on the threshold of self-discovery.
 
LL/28842