Mariette Pathy Allen, New York, USA
Mariette Pathy Allen has been photographing the transgender community for over 30 years. Through her artistic practice, she has been a pioneering force in gender consciousness, contributing to numerous cultural and academic publications about gender variance and lecturing throughout the globe. Her first book "Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them" was groundbreaking in its investigation of a misunderstood community. Her second book "The Gender Frontier" is a collection of photographs, interviews, and essays covering political activism, youth, and the range of people that identify as transgender in mainland USA. It won the 2004 Lambda Literary Award in the Transgender/Genderqueer category. Daylight books has just published Mariette’s new book, “TransCuba”!
Mariette’s life’s work is being archived by Duke University's Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's Studies. In addition to her work with gender, Mariette’s background as a painter frequently leads her to photographic investigations of color, space, and cultural juxtapositions such as east/west, old/new, handmade/manufactured.
Mariette Pathy Allen, New York, USA
Mariette Pathy Allen has photographed the transgender” community” for over 30 years. The photographs shown here are images of fluidity in the relationship of body and mind: Anatomy, self-perception, and choice of partner, are neither fixed nor immutable.
Mariette graduated from Vassar College and received a MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania. She won a New York State Council on the Arts grant in 1988, and in 1989, her book,“Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them”, was published by E.P. Dutton, Inc.
Mariette’s second book, “The Gender Frontier”, published by Kehrer Verlag in Heidelberg, Germany, won a 2004 Lambda Literary Award. Some of the images in the book were included in the ” 7th International Exhibition of Photography”, held in Mannheim/Ludwigshafen, in 2005. Ms. Allen was invited to exhibit at the 2009 International Photo Festival in Lishui, China.
Ms. Allen has been a consultant and still photographer on 5 films: “Southern Comfort”, the most recent,
won the 2001 Sundance documentary award. Mariette Pathy Allen’s work is in the permanent collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the George Eastman House, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum, Frankfurt, among others. Ms. Allen has made hundreds of slide presentations at academic and other organizations.
Collections holding the works by Mariette Pathy Allen
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA
Brooklyn Museum of Art, NYC, USA
New York Public Library, NYC, USA
Reiss-Engelhorn Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, USA
Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, USA
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
Fogg Museum, Harvard U., MA, USA
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, IN, USA
Haverford College, Haverford, PA, USA
Museum of Photography, Lishui, China
Books about Mariette Pathy Allen
Mariette Pathy Allen: TransCuba: Daylight Books, 2014, Hardback
Mariette Pathy Allen: The Gender Frontier: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, 2004, Hardback
Mariette Pathy Allen: Masked Culture: The Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, Columbia U. Press, 1994
Mariette Pathy Allen: Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them. E. P. Dutton Inc.,1989.Collection
