{
"data": {
"id": 157712,
"accession_number": "1995.198",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Black Eye, 1991 (printed 1995). Sally Mann (American, 1951-). Gelatin silver print; image: 46.8 x 58.5 cm (18 7/16 x 23 1/16 in.); paper: 50.1 x 60.7 cm (19 3/4 x 23 7/8 in.); matted: 76.2 x 81.3 cm (30 x 32 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Friends of Photography, 1995.198. \u00a9 1991 Sally Mann",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Black Eye",
"creation_date": "1991 (printed 1995)",
"creation_date_earliest": 1991,
"creation_date_latest": 1991,
"artists_tags": [
"female"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "gelatin silver print",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - American 1951-Present",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 46.8 x 58.5 cm (18 7/16 x 23 1/16 in.); Paper: 50.1 x 60.7 cm (19 3/4 x 23 7/8 in.); Matted: 76.2 x 81.3 cm (30 x 32 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.468,
"height_inch": 18,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.4375,
"width": 0.585,
"width_inch": 23,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0625
},
"paper": {
"height": 0.501,
"height_inch": 19,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.607,
"width_inch": 23,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.875
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.762,
"height_inch": 30,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.813,
"width_inch": 32,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 1991 Sally Mann",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in pencil on verso: \"Black Eye / Sally Mann [signed], \u00a9 1991 / 8/25 / ed {25 20 x 24 / 25 16x20 / 25 8 x 10\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311875,
"title": "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).",
"opening_date": "1996-11-24T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 184611,
"title": "Gifts from the CMA Friends of Photography",
"description": "Gifts from the CMA Friends of Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 7, 2002-April 23, 2003).",
"opening_date": "2002-12-07T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA, November 20,1996 - February 2, 1997: \"Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art,\" see Catalogue of Photography, pp. 66-67.",
"opening_date": "1997-02-02T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; December 7, 2002 - April 23, 2003. \"Gifts from the CMA Friends of Photography,\" CMA Members Magazine (January 2003), p.",
"opening_date": "2002-12-07T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"description": "In 1984, Sally Mann began photographing her three children\u2014Jesse, Virginia and Emmett\u2014at their summer house near Lexington, Virginia. The images show the children wearing bathing suits, light summer clothes, or no clothes at all, and their self-assured posturing is spellbinding. Mann's often controversial photographs depict the fascinating narratives that expose parental fears and the vulnerability and defiance of children. In Black Eye, she focused on Virginia's upper torso and face, the child's bruised eye (resulting from a mishap with a hammock) evident as she dozes in a sheltering wing chair. Reminiscent of Victorian postmortem images, the sitter's serene face gently bathed in a soft light, her folded hands, and her oddly arranged hair make it difficult to determine whether the child is actually dead or alive.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79974842"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: P. 66-67, 229",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Hinson, Tom E. \"Friends of Photography.\" Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 43, no. 1 (January 2003): 6-7.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 6-7",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2003-01/page/n5/mode/2up"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.198",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Friends of Photography",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 157712,
"creators": [
{
"id": 623,
"description": "Sally Mann (American, 1951-)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Sally Mann American, 1951-\r\n\r\nExplorations of childhood, adolescence, and puberty characterize the imagery of Sally Mann (born Sally Munger), who first came to public attention for her series on pre-teenage girls, published in 1988 as At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women. Since 1984 her images have focused on family scenes centered around her three children, Emmet, Jessie, and Virginia. Working in black and white with a large-format view camera, Mann is both documentarian and storyteller, chronicling her children's physical and emotional maturity as she photographs their everyday mishaps and playtime adventures. The children often appear nude, without modesty, and the candor of her subjects has sparked controversy over the photographs as part of the public domain and over issues of childhood sexuality and freedom. It has also raised debates about Mann herself, as she moves between roles as artist and mother.\r\n\tMann studied English and creative writing at Hollins College in Virginia (B.A., 1974; M.A., 1975). She took photography courses at Praestegaard Film School (1971), the Aegean School of Fine Arts (1972), Apeiron (1973), and the Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop (1973). Among her awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1973, 1976), the Friends of Photography (1974), the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (1982), the National Endowment for the Arts (1982, 1988, 1992), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1987), the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (1989), and Artists in the Visual Arts (1989). Her publications include Second Sight: The Photographs of Sally Mann (1983), Immediate Family (1992), and Halloween (1993). Mann has shown in one-person exhibitions at the Southeastern Center of Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem (1988), the Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego (1989), and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art (1990). In 1994 the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, organized a traveling exhibition titled Still Time. Mann lives in her native Lexington, Virginia. A.W.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1951",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1995-12-04T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1991,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1991 (printed 1995)",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": "8",
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:51:50.721000"
}
}