Cohen, Mark

BiographyMark Cohen’s intimate street photography focuses on the daily movements and gestures of unassuming subjects and objects. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he worked primarily in his hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and in parts of Mexico where he developed his unique aesthetic sensibility of un-posed closeness. His process relies on a well-honed intuition—Cohen holds his camera at arm’s length and shoots without looking through the viewfinder. He captures the details of facial expressions, posture, and texture in his innovative cropped compositions that are illuminated by flash.

Mark Cohen attended Penn State University and Wilkes College between 1961 and 1965, and opened a photo studio in 1966. His work began to gain recognition after his first solo exhibition at MoMA in 1973. Although he is best known for his black-and-white photographs, Cohen was a major figure in the 1970s color movement that revolutionized American photography. He received Guggenheim Grants in 1971 and 1976 as well as the National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1975. His 2013 retrospective at Le Bal, Paris was accompanied by the publication of the photographic book Dark Knees, which is now critically acclaimed. His work is held in the permanent collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and various other museums and galleries.