John Clark Mayden (born May 16, 1951) is an American photographer, author, and attorney. In 2019, he authored ''Baltimore Lives: The Portraits of John Clark Mayden'', his collected photographic works of African-Americans in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
street scenes between 1970 and 2012.
Early years
Mayden was born in 1951 and grew up in Baltimore's
Druid Hill Park
Druid Hill Park is a urban park in northwest Baltimore, Maryland. Its boundaries are marked by Druid Park Drive (north), Swann Drive and Reisterstown Road (west and south), and the Jones Falls Expressway / Interstate 83 (east).Northwestern High School, where he was the first black president of the student government at a time when the school was predominantly white. Mayden was also captain of Northwestern's football team in his senior year, as well as competing on the track team.
Mayden was impressed as a youngster by the ''Life'' magazine photography of
Gordon Parks
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particu ...
. While still a teenager, Mayden interned at
WMAR-TV
WMAR-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. The station's studios and offices are located on York Road (Maryland Route 45) in Towson (though with ...
, where he became interested in photography as an assistant accompanying the Baltimore television station's staff photographer covering various news assignments. He then progressed to learning
photographic processing
Photographic processing or photographic development is the chemical means by which photographic film or paper is treated after photographic exposure to produce a negative or positive image. Photographic processing transforms the latent image into ...
in the newsroom's
darkroom
A darkroom is used to process photographic film, to make prints and to carry out other associated tasks. It is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of the light-sensitive photographic materials, including film and ph ...
.
Mayden graduated from
Ohio Wesleyan University
Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) is a private liberal arts college in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1842 by methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents as a nonsectarian institution, and is a member of the Ohio Five – a consortium ...
in 1974 with a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
degree in political science and a minor in fine arts. While at Ohio Wesleyan, he was admitted to the university's chapter of
Pi Sigma Alpha
Pi Sigma Alpha ( or PSA), the National Political Science Honor Society, is the only honor society for college and university students of political and social sciences in the United States. Its purpose is to recognize and promote high academic ...
, the political science honor society. In 1978, Mayden obtained a
Juris Doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
degree at the
University of Baltimore School of Law
The University of Baltimore School of Law, or the UB School of Law, is one of the four colleges that make up the University of Baltimore, which is part of the University System of Maryland. The UBalt School of Law is one of only two law schools i ...
. Mayden then worked as an attorney in the office of the Baltimore City Solicitor for 34 years before his retirement. He also led the successful effort to reopen the closed YMCA where he swam and played basketball as a teenager. In the early 1980s, Mayden was president of that Y's board of directors.
Photography
As an African-American, Mayden's photographs of black life have been exhibited nationwide and portray people he has encountered in various street scenes of Baltimore and some of its gritty neighborhoods. His photographs were extolled by
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...
for capturing the "majesty of black life" in portraying people who are "weary but not cast down". Mayden's works have been exhibited at the
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Overview
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
and the University of Pennsylvania's Sharp Gallery, as well as the
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...
,
Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
, and most recently Johns Hopkins University's
George Peabody Library
The George Peabody Library is a library connected to the Johns Hopkins University, focused on research into the 19th century. It was formerly the Library of the Peabody Institute of music in the City of Baltimore, and is located on the Peabody c ...
. Mayden was an artist-in-residence at the
Light Work
Light Work is a photography center in Syracuse, New York. The artist-run nonprofit supports photographers through a community-access digital lab facility, residencies, exhibitions, and publications.
History
The organization is housed at Syra ...
program of
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
in 2008. For the 2019 exhibition of his works at the George Peabody Library, ''City People: Black Baltimore in the Photographs of John Clark Mayden'', the curators said, "Mayden lays bare the beauty and heartbreak of everyday life, Black life, in an American city."
In 2019, Mayden authored ''Baltimore Lives: The Portraits of John Clark Mayden'', his collected photographic works of African-Americans in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
street scenes between 1970 and 2012. The book of 101 photographs chronicles "the everyday beauty and pain of Black life in Baltimore", he writes. It won the ''Foreword'' Magazine Book of the Year Bronze Award in 2019 in the category Photography (Adult Nonfiction). The judges making the award praised both the technical excellence of Mayden's photography, citing its "gorgeous velvety tones and textures" and "composition, lighting, and darkroom technique", and the subject matter of people "burdened by problems, but whose everyday lives resonate with intensity".
Mayden told a reporter that he recalls taking the photo used on the book's cover ''(pictured)'' in 1977. The unknown woman was waiting at a neighborhood bus stop. After she made eye contact, he snapped her picture, anticipating it would make a beguiling portrait.
Mayden's photographs appear in the HBO film adaptation of ''
Between the World and Me
''Between the World and Me'' is a 2015 nonfiction book written by American author Ta-Nehisi Coates and published by Spiegel & Grau. It is written as a letter to the author's teenage son about the feelings, symbolism, and realities associated wi ...
'', which is based on
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates ( ; born September 30, 1975) is an American author and journalist. He gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at ''The Atlantic'', where he wrote about cultural, social, and political issues, parti ...
' account of his struggles as a black youth in Baltimore. The ''
Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' called the photographs "powerful images".
Personal life
Mayden married Bronwyn W. Mayden on April 5, 1975, and they have two sons. , the couple lives in the west Baltimore neighborhood of Hunting Ridge, a city-designated Historic District, where he maintains a photography studio and darkroom having more than 30,000 negatives.
WJZ-TV
WJZ-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, and maintains studios and offices on Televi ...