The Face of New Jersey and People With Art
August 1 – 31, 2002
Although I initially expected to devote my professional life to painting, I took a photography
class with Harold Feinstein after receiving my MFA in painting. The experience was exhilarating
—it felt like I was given a passport into the world. Not long after, the head of the State Museum
of New Jersey, inspired by “The Family of Man” exhibition, invited me to capture “The Face of
New Jersey.” Taken in 1968 around Philadelphia and New Jersey, these photographs represent
my earliest work.
“People with art” is an ongoing series I began during this same period and continued in the US
and Europe until the early 2000s. I deliberately use a lowercase “a” in “art” to embrace a broad
definition. This series explores various interactions between people and art: people making art,
people in juxtaposition to art or kitsch, people in art spaces, or even people as art.
Mariette Pathy Allen is a photographer of transgender, genderfluid, and gender variant
communities, as well as other continuous series such as Birth and Families, The Face of New
Jersey, People With Art, Flowers and Fantasy, Texas, and Scapes. In 1978, on the last day of
Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Allen met Vicky West, a trans woman she befriended and through
whom she was first invited to Fantasia Fair, a transgender conference where she would serve
as official photographer. She traveled across the US to many other transgender conferences,
participated in political activism, and worked for the Transgender Tapestry magazine. She
continues to pursue the work of photographing, interviewing, and advocating on behalf of
gender-nonconforming people.
Allen is the author of five books that have brought visibility to transgender communities across
the world, including Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them (1989), The
Gender Frontier (2004), TransCuba (2014), Transcendents: Spirit Mediums in Burma and
Thailand (2017), and I Was The Girl: Art by Vicky West (2024). She has made dozens of slide
presentations to various groups, participated in radio and television programs, and been a
consultant and still photographer for films. Allen’s work is included in numerous public and
private collections and has been exhibited internationally. Her work is being archived by Duke
University’s Rare Book and Manuscripts Library and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s
Studies. Allen is based in New York City and is represented by CLAMP, New York. You can find
her online at www.mariettepathyallen.com and on Instagram at @Mariette_Pathy_Allen.