At the opening last spring of "Immediate Family," Sally Mann's show at the Houk Friedman Gallery in New York, the winsome young subjects of the photographs aroused as much curiosity as the artist herself. Motoring among the spectators like honorees at a testimonial dinner, Mann's three children -- Emmett, 12, Jessie, 10, and Virginia, 7 -- looked completely at ease with the crowd's prying adoration. While her mother and father conversed with friends and admirers, Jessie orbited the four rooms in her red dress, fielding questions from strangers eager to know more about her parents. Beneath a portrait of himself in the water, Emmett shrugged off the stares and expressed a typical teen-age frame of mind. "These shoes cost $70," he boasted about his opening night footwear. All three seemed unconcerned by the fact that on the surrounding white walls they could be examined, up close, totally nude.
The Mann children have endured scrutiny for some time now. Eight years ago, their mother began to chronicle their growing up -- the wet beds, insect bites, nap times, their aspirations toward adulthood and their innocent savagery. And the work that resulted has changed the lives of all involved.
Sally Mann was an accomplished photographer before the series, but in these intimate black-and-white portraits, exhibited piecemeal over the last several years, she struck a vein. The fears and sheltering tenderness that any parent has felt for his or her child were realized with an eidetic clarity. A half-naked androgyne, smeared with dirt and grass stains, looks up from a leaf-strewn yard. Lithe, pale shapes move with prideful ease among thick-torsoed elders. The images seemed to speak of a familiar past that was now distant and irretrievable.
The vein has bled silver. Since the beginning of the year, Houk Friedman has taken orders for more than 300 prints, well over a half-million dollars worth of photographs, and the waiting period for delivery of new prints is at least a year. Probably no photographer in history has enjoyed such a burst of success in the art world. And it will likely continue now that Aperture has published a monograph of "Immediate Family" in conjunction with a traveling museum show, opening on Oct. 29 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.
