Mark Cohen was born in 1943 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. A photographer since 1958 he has worked as commercial photographer to support himself as an artist. Cohen has taught photography at Princeton University, Wilkes College, and Kings College.

Cohen’s photography was first exhibited in Nathan Lyons’ 1968 exhibition Vision and Expression. Cohen was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships (1971 and 1976), and a NEA Photographer’s Fellowship (1975), for his work, which has been reproduced in such publications as Photography in America (1974), Faces: A Narrative History of the Portrait in Photography (1977), and Masterpieces of Photography from the George Eastman House (1985). Cohen lives and works in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Bibliographic Reference:

Carol Squires, "Mark Cohen: Recognized Moments," Artforum, March 1978

The George Eastman House collection holds work by Cohen dating from 1967 to ca. 1978. His fragmented, often harshly lit, and visually chaotic images in both black and white and color are represented, with the color work predominating with 101 prints. Though Cohen’s work is predominately black & white, the Eastman House collection is weighted toward color, from "an experimental deal set up by Bill Jenkins just to see how things would look in color if it were as simple and easy to make color pictures as black and white prints. [So Kodak made the prints.]" (Mark Cohen, 11/2000) Three photographic post cards sent by the photographer to former Eastman House curator Bill Jenkins are housed in the Library’s manuscript collection.

The Museum acquired Cohen’s work through purchase and gifts from the photographer, and other purchases supported with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts from 1971 through 1977. In 1978 Cohen gave the Museum 101 color photographs, the result of a special commission he had from Eastman Kodak Company (as explained above) to create images using Kodak color materials. Also in 1978 more of Cohen’s black and white work was purchased with NEA funds.

Del Zogg, 10/2000