Her use of an interesting and unusual printing style brought a brooding and dramatic mood to her images. She felt that she had captured some of the typical preteen emotions to portray the developing identities of young girls. When Sally published At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women in 1988, she showed the world her visual study of adolescent girls which stirred up many conversations and questions. in 1977. These somewhat surrealistic images later were included in Second Sight, her first publication in 1983.Īlthough her work has often been called controversial, she attracts a wide, varied audience of people and always remains influential. Her photographs of the building process of Lewis Hall, the new law building, led to Sally’s first solo show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

She returned to Virginia after graduation where she worked as a photographer at Washington and Lee. She has always photographed primarily in the southern areas of the United States. Sally Mann has always stayed faithful to her southern roots, Shenandoah Valley and the rolling hills in Rockbridge County. Original prints of Sally Mann’s photographs can run between five and six figures at auction, such as this signed and numbered gelatin silver print of Candy Cigarette, which was estimated between $80,000 to $120,000, and ended up selling for $257,000. Sally took art and photography classes at Bennington College, Friends World College and earned her B.A. She showed some of her student photographs at Putney before she graduated in 1969. She continued with formal coursework in photography at the Putney Boarding School in Vermont. Sally began her career in photography by using her father’s old 5” by 7” camera. Her father was a doctor while her mother worked in a Washington and Lee University bookstore. Untitled (#49 Woven Branches 2, Deep South Frontispiece), 1998īorn in 1951 in Virginia, Sally Mann was the only daughter but the third child for Robert and Elizabeth Munger.

Hold Still: A Memoir With Photographs was a National Book Award finalist and named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and others. In her memoir, released in May, 2015, Sally Mann reveals an intimate, visceral, and beautiful family history, steeped in the gritty landscape of the American South.Ĭombining startling photographs with narrative prose, the author captivates readers by piecing together artifacts from her ancestors and their surroundings.

Sally mann memoir