Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay were a driving energy behind the National Museum of Women in the Arts both financially and contributing to its success in becoming a vital institution. Since opening its doors in 1987, at the renovated historic former Masonic temple on New York Avenue in Washington, DC the NMWA for over three decades has dedicated itself to showcasing works solely by women in its exhibitions and to the collecting of art by women across time.

Presently the collection comprises more than 4,500 works indiverse styles and media that span from the 16th century to the 21st century. Such impressive artists as Rosa Bonheur, Rosalba Carriera, Louise Joséphine Bourgeois, Mary Cassatt, Kathe Kollowitz, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Lynda Benglish, Nancy Graves, Petah Coyne, Elizabeth Murray, Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark are among more than 1000 artists represented.

The current photography exhibition titled Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood in the Teresa Lozano Long Gallery is a small but captivating show of 30 black and white images taken over Mark’s 5-decade career. She was inspired by the work of major documentary photographers as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Dorothea Lange. Collectively this sampling of work captures flashes of adolescence taken in communities both in the United States and overseas. This selection of photographs comes from a donation of more than 160 images by Mark and given to the NMWA by members of the Photography Buyers Syndicate.

It is an ideal show to have begun Women’s History Month, because Mark was anamazing documentary photographer/journalist who had compassion to photograph ordinary people living outside of mainstream society. Despite photographing diverse people and subjects, all through her long career she remained especially interested in children and young girls.

This quiet yet compelling exhibit portrays girls and young women living around the globe, as well as in the United States. Because of Mark’s inquisitive approach, her candid portraits of women cut across societal clichés, capturing in varied situations through her lens the girls and young women in the moment. Mark firmly believed that each individual has a unique story behind their face filled with empathy, fear, frankness, happiness and humor. A sense of respect and dignity is seen throughout her subjects.

Emine Dressed Up for Republic Day, Trabzon, Turkey, 1965 is a classic Mark photograph taken in the 1960s when she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to photographin Turkey. Mark gave Emine no direction as how to pose for this portrait; the girl’s disheveled hair, unbuckled and somewhat dirty shoes evince childhood, yet she opts to mimic a more grown-up portrayal by sporting a teenage pose, displaying an eagerness to grow up. Mark considers this picture “the first strong photograph I made.”

Mark spent three months in India photographing brothels that line Falkland Road, in Mumbai, India. Her work called international attention to injustice facing many unnoticed young women. The only image in this exhibition in vibrant color is titled “Falkland Road,Mumbai, India, 1987” portrays a young girl being made up for a client. She is merely a teenager scarcely out of childhood, forced into prostitution in one of Asia’s largest redlight districts. The disconcerted look on her face is gripping!

While photographing on set for the film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in 1975, Mark took images of young women living in high-security at the Oregon State Hospital. “Laurie in the Bathtub, Ward 81”, is an uncanny image in which we see only the head of a girl with dark long hair pushed back, with her body submerged in bubbles in a white tub. She stares out at the camera with a mysterious expression. There is a pervading beauty in her youthful innocence as well as a peculiarity, akin to Diane Arbus-like portrayals.

A moving image is “Women and Children in a Doorway, Mexico, 1965” that
captures self-respect, love and intimacy among a family despite the poverty encompassing them.

Between 2006 and 2008, Mark traveled across the USA, documenting high school proms using a 240- pound Polaroid 20 x 24 Land Camera. The subject of the school prom interested Mark, since this ritual represented the transition from youth to adulthood in many locales. Her subjects vary from seriousness to playfulness, as seen in “Lucas Nathan and Grace Bush-Vineberg, 2008” and “Ursula Phillips and Gregg Whitlock Jr., 2006”. In the
former, a solemn formality pervades, while in the latter, a type of deliberate sexual posturing is evident.

An intriguing photograph that captures the happy-go-lucky moments of childhood is“Batman and Little Barbies at the Toys “R’ US Holiday Parade, New York 2002”. Three little girls, playing princess dress-up, posture for the camera with a looming Batman directly behind them; a juxtaposition of the costumed girls with the iconic popular culture superhero that is commanding!

The range of work in this jewel of an exhibition from twins, girls smoking cigarettes and schoolgirls in Kiev, offer viewers an intriguing glimpse into the vulnerability of girlhood across the globe. Mary Ellen Mark’s fascinating photographs provide one with an unusual peek into the often hidden world of youth while affording a special slice of humanism. In an era of heightened cynicism, this exhibition is a delight!

Elaine A. King, Contributing Editor

“Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood”at the National Museum of Women In the Arts, Washington, D.C., through July 11, 2021