May Mirin (1900-1997) was an American photographer who documented life in Mexico.

Biography

May Mirin was born in New York in 1900. She first visited

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

in 1937, then returned to the country frequently for long periods until the 1980s. There she produced documentary and travel series, contemporaneously with fellow Americans Jasper Wood, Wayne Miller and Canadian Reva Brooks, at a time when pictures by few significant Mexican-born photographers, other than those by

Lola Lola may refer to: Places * Lolá, a or subdistrict of Panama * Lola Township, Cherokee County, Kansas, United States * Lola Prefecture, Guinea * Lola, Guinea, a town in Lola Prefecture * Lola Island, in the Solomon Islands People * Lol ...

and Manuel Alvarez Bravo, were known outside the country. Mirin's images and writing featured in popular mid-century American photography magazines.

Recognition

In 1955, two of her photographs - one of a candlelit religious devotion in Mexico and a second of a graveyard in New York - were chosen by

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (; March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter and curator and a pioneer of fashion photography. His gown images for the magazine ''Art et Décoration'' in 1911 were the first modern ...

for the exhibition

The Family of Man ''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) department of photography. According to Steichen, the exhibitio ...

that he curated for

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, and which toured the world and was seen by over 9 million visitors. She was among the numbers of its participating photographers remembered by Helen Gee as frequenting her Limelight gallery,

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

's first important post-war photography gallery (1954-1961).

Later life

During the 1970s she took up painting and volunteered for the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

.mentioned in American Museum of Natural History in-house magazine ''Grapevine'' Vol XXIX, No.3 as “May Mirin-photographer of merit and Sunday painter”

Collections

Examples of May Mirin's photographic work are held in the permanent collections of the

Museum Folkwang Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th- and 20th-century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patr ...

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

, MoMA and Clerveaux Castle,

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mirin, May 1900 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American photographers Photography in Mexico American expatriates in Mexico Photographers from New York (state)