Review: Sally Mann’s fascinating expansion of ‘At Twelve’ at Jackson Fine Art

Mann lives high in the pantheon of Southern photographers — her elegiac images of her family, community and Southern environs deservedly venerated. They have also sometimes been mired in controversy due to Mann occasionally showing her subjects nude.

Her work has often been shown in Atlanta, including “A Thousand Crossings,” a major exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art and the Peabody Essex Museum that was mounted at the High Museum of Art in late 2019 (and sadly shuttered in early 2020 because of a leaky roof). Atlanta’s Jackson Fine Art has been featuring her work since 1996.

In other words, Mann is a superstar.

Credit: Photo by Sally Mann

Credit: Photo by Sally Mann

Having lived in Atlanta for decades, I have learned to understand Southern sensibilities as best I can, considering that — at the end of the day — I am and will always be an outsider. Acknowledging the cultural and physical complexity of this region, I am in awe of the many great artists who have interpreted the Southern experience through visual, literary and performance works.

Since the 19th century, Southern photography has held a special position among the disciplines, with its inherent abilities to tell spoken and unspoken stories about the region’s lushness and emotional contradictions and to document the larger truths of the Southern experience. Mann’s work, including her landscapes, is quintessentially Southern, offering private and intimate windows through which to experience her meditations on the cycles of life and nature.

A talented writer as well, she is an artist who has continued to reinvent herself since the 1970s, yet she is grounded in her roots.

She still lives in Rockbridge County, where she grew up, and has not ventured artistically beyond the South. She has always worked old-school, with large-format cameras and traditional 19th and 20th century printing techniques, accounting for the richness and beauty of her prints.

Born in 1951, Mann has produced multiple bodies of her work, the most notorious of which is her 1992 series “Immediate Family.” The project documented small moments in the lives of her family, including her three young children, who are sometimes pictured in the nude. Charges of pornography and exploitation followed.

Placed in historical context, the photographs debuted in the midst of the 1980s-early 1990s culture wars during a heightened moment (not unlike today). As recently as January, images from this series were removed from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, after politicians once again made accusations of pornography.

Preceding “Immediate Family” and foreshadowing its overarching empathic eye is Mann’s “At Twelve” series, published by Aperture in a book of the same name in 1988. Aperture recently reissued this classic.

Credit: Photo by Sally Mann

Credit: Photo by Sally Mann

From 1983 to 1985, Mann shot poignant images of 12-year-old girls on the cusp of womanhood around her home in Virginia. The photographs became the focus of the book, the final-selection photographs tightly edited by Mann in collaboration with Aperture.

The images collectively capture the time of transition when girls are on the cusp of womanhood. Some are still children; others are blooming with their newfound sexuality. Some are awkward; others are naively confident. Some are with friends or sisters; mothers appear, but the few boys and men who appear are represented by truncated arms and hands, not their faces.

Recently, Mann decided to take a second look at the “At Twelve” photographs that didn’t make the original edit. Jackson Fine Art’s current exhibition displays the fruit of her labors, featuring 32 8-by-10-inch silver gelatin prints.

On the wall is a text written by Mann in 1988:

“What knowing watchfulness in the eyes of a twelve-year old … She is the very picture of contradictions: on one hand diffident and ambivalent, on the other forthright and impatient; half pertness and half pout. Impossibly, she is both artless and sophisticated; a child yet a woman.”

Credit: Photo by Sally Mann

Credit: Photo by Sally Mann

Underscoring this observation, Jackson Fine Art selected “Untitled (Lisa and Jenny on Car)” as the exhibition’s branding image. Two 12-year-olds going on 20 are provocatively draped on a car, gazing beyond the view of the camera. On the other hand, “Untitled (Jennifer, Mother and Hair Bow with Bubble)” portrays a girl who is clearly still a child.

In some photographs, girls languidly play in playgrounds; in others, we only see a girl’s back or torsos. The compositions are always tight, underscoring their power.

The exhibition is moving, yet I came away with the observation that Mann’s first edit was stronger than this one. Nonetheless, this is a fascinating and worthwhile opportunity to view the work of this great photographer.

I had a conversation with Anna Skillman, Jackson Fine Art gallerist, about our own experiences as 12-year-old girls and the difficulties of the transition from childhood to womanhood. For both of us, they were challenging times (I can make myself cry thinking about it). But, as we both observed, they don’t compare with what 12-year-olds go through in the age of cellphones and social media.

So, in this sense, this exhibition is nostalgic about a kinder and gentler time.

Complementing “At Twelve” is a selection of some of Mann’s Southern landscape work from her 1996 “Georgia” and 1998 “Deep South” series. Using 19th century wet-plate collodion technology, these prints are profoundly beautiful, affirming Mann’s love of the South with all its contradictions.

Mann, above all, has been true unto herself throughout her long artistic journey.

ART REVIEW

Sally Mann: “At Twelve”

Through March 29 at Jackson Fine Art. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 3122 E. Shadowlawn Ave. NE, Atlanta. 404-233-3739, jacksonfineart.com

::

Louise E. Shaw served as curator of the David J. Sencer CDC Museum from 2002 to 2025. Previously, she was executive director of Nexus Contemporary Art Center (now Atlanta Contemporary) from 1983 through 1998.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

MEET OUR PARTNER