ITHACA, NY.- The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University presents Mary Ellen Mark: The Prom Series, on view from August 9 to October 26, 2008. The acclaimed American photographer Mary Ellen Mark has spent the past three prom seasons photographing schools across the country. In June 2008, she documented her twelfth and final prom at Ithaca High School.

Mark began her project with the 2006 prom at Malcolm X Shabazz High School in Newark, New Jersey, and continued with Cheltenham High School in Wyncote, Pennsylvania; Tottenville High School in Staten Island, St. Michael Academy in Manhattan, Fontbonne Hall Academy in Brooklyn, New York; Riverview School in Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Charlottesville High School in Charlottesville, Virginia; MacArthur High School in Houston and Westlake High School in Austin, Texas; Palisades Charter High School in Pacific Palisades and Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, California. She selects the couples she wants to photograph, focusing on unusual or nontraditional pairings scouted by her staff and local interns.

This exhibition will feature thirty selections by the artist, all 20 x 24 inch black-and-white Polaroids. Mark rented one of the six existing cameras from Polaroid, made in the late 1970s and weighing 235 pounds. Polaroid stopped making the large-format film earlier this year, and Mark bought all of the remaining black-and-white stock.

Mary Ellen Mark will speak at the Johnson Museum on Thursday, September 4 at 5:15 p.m. Curator Nancy Green will give a tour of the exhibition as part of the Museum's "Art for Lunch" series on Thursday, September 11 at 12:00 noon. Both events are free and open to the public.

The Johnson Museum has a permanent collection of over 30,000 works of art from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. The museum building was designed by I. M. Pei. Funds for the building were donated by Cornell alumnus Herbert F. Johnson, late president and chairman of S C Johnson. The building opened in 1973.