Helen Marcus
Home page: http://www.helenmarcus.com
Archive contact: Helen Marcus (marcgroup@earthlink.net)
HELEN MARCUS is a freelance photographer based in New York specializing in portraiture, travel and annual reports.
After many years as a TV producer with Goodson-Todman Productions, on such programs as "To Tell The Truth", "What's My Line", and "Beat The Clock", Ms. Marcus became seriously interested in photography and started working with clients in publishing - including Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers Weekly, Viking, Simon & Schuster, during the 70's and 80's, photographing authors including Norman Mailer, Anne Tyler, John Barth. In addition she has photographed many TV and film personalities.
Her work has appeared in Time, Travel and Leisure, Food & Wine, Vogue, Gourmet and Forbes and numerous books. Assignments have taken her to China, Japan, the Soviet Union, India, Egypt, Mexico and Europe. She has photographed for many corporations including Clairol, International Paper Co., Verizon, Volvo, and Fortune.
On assignments for The New York Public Library she worked on photographing architectural detail of buildings in the Library system - blished in the Library's 1972 Annual Report.
"People are special to me - whether I photograph authors whose work I know, executives in the corporate boardroom, or people in the streets or countryside whom one see fleetingly."
She sees places as an extension of the creativity of people, whether it's the austere beauty of Shaker design, the elegant simplicity of Chinese architecture or the graciousness of the interiors of Monticello. Her work captures the spirit of these places.
Her photograph of author Toni Morrison, was used for the image on the Swedish Post Office stamp honoring Ms. Morrison as the Nobel Laureate in Literature in 1993. Ms. Marcus has had solo exhibitions at the Asia Society; the New York Pubic Library; Parents Magazine Gallery and the Overseas Press Club. She has been adjunct professor at The New School, Parsons School of Design; Tisch School of the Arts, NYU; School of Visual Arts and instructor at The Maine Photographic Workshops. She studied with Philippe Halsman.
Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.; Portland Museum of Photography, Portland, ME; International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany and International Center of Photography, New York.
She is currently president emerita of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, Inc, past president of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and founder of the New York Chapter of the ASMP.