Mary Ellen Mark - H 2015
AP ImagesMary Ellen Mark, famed photojournalist and humanist photographer, died May 25 in New York City, her rep confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. She was 75.
“Mary Ellen touched so many people throughout the world. We all celebrate her fierce and passionate spirit,” the rep said in a statement.
Born in Philadelphia, Mark studied art history and painting at the University of Pennsylvania and received a master’s in photojournalism from Penn’s Annenberg School of Communication in 1964.
During the course of her career, she published 16 collections of her work and regularly contributed to publications such as Rolling Stone, Vogue, Vanity Fair and Life. She also served as a still photographer on sets for films including Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Francis Ford Coppola‘s Apocalypse Now (1979) and Baz Luhrmann‘s Australia (2008).
Mark photographed a wide array of subjects — ranging from celebrities to prostitutes to the homeless — and had used her work to highlight social issues since the 1960s.
She received three Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lifetime Achievement in Photography Award from the George Eastman House.
Mark is survived by her husband, film director Martin Bell.
