Immediate Family (book)

Cover
AuthorSally Mann
LanguageEnglish
GenrePhotography
PublisherAperture
Publication date
1992
Pages78
ISBN978-0-89381-518-9
Preceded byAt Twelve: Portraits of Young Women 
Followed byStill Time 

Immediate Family is a 1992 photography book by Sally Mann. Images from the book were first exhibited in 1990 by Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York City.[1] The book is published by Aperture and contains 65 duotone images. The book predominantly features Mann's three children, Emmett, Jessie and Virginia, when all were under 10 years old. Thirteen of the pictures show nudity and three show minor injuries; Emmett with a nosebleed, Jessie with a cut and stitches, and Jessie with a swollen eye from an insect bite. Many explore typical childhood activities at the family's remote summer cabin along the Maury River (skinny dipping, reading the funnies, dressing up, vamping, napping, playing board games) but others touch on darker themes such as insecurity, loneliness, injury, sexuality and death. Several images from the book were re-published in Mann's next book, Still Time.[2]

Mann stated, "I didn't expect the controversy over the pictures of my children. I was just a mother photographing her children as they were growing up. I was exploring different subjects with them."[3]

Dr. Aaron Esman, a child psychiatrist at the Payne Whitney Clinic believes that Mann is serious about her work and that she has "no intention to jeopardize her children or use them for pornographic images". He says that the nude photographs don't appear to be erotically stimulating to anyone but a "case-hardened pedophile or a rather dogmatic religious fundamentalist".[4]

  1. ^ Mann, Sally. "Sally Mann CV" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 12, 2015. Retrieved February 12, 2015.
  2. ^ Wilson, Emma (2003). Cinema's Missing Children. Wallflower Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-1-903364-51-2. Retrieved March 3, 2013.
  3. ^ Proctor, Roy. "VMFA show gives Mann chance to transcend controversy". Gagosian Gallery. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Cantor.1994 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).