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Book Publications

  • Transcendents: Spirit Mediums in Burma and Thailand: Daylight Books, 2017 
  • TransCuba: Daylight Books, 2014
  • The Gender Frontier: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, 2004
  • Masked Culture: The Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, Columbia U. Press, 1994 (featured)
  • Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them. E. P. Dutton Inc., 1989.

Permanent Collections

  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
  • Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
  • The Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH 
  • Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
  • National Gallery of Art (Previously the Corcoran Gallery of Art), Washington, DC
  • Brooklyn Museum of Art, NYC
  • New York Public Library, NYC
  • Reiss-Engelhorn Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
  • George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
  • Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium
  • Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
  • Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
  • Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
  • Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
  • Fogg Museum, Harvard U., MA
  • Duke University, Durham, NC
  • Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, IN
  • Haverford College, Haverford, PA
  • Museum of Photography, Lishui, China
  • Private Collections

Selected Solo Exhibitions

  • "Breaking Boundaries: 50 Years of Images," Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR, 2025
  • "Breaking Boundaries: 50 Years of Images," WEAM (World Erotic Art Museum), Miami Beach, FL, 2024-2025
  • "Breaking Boundaries: 50 Years of Images," Culture Lab LIC, Queens, NY, 2023
  • "Transformations: A Gender Exploration," FMoPA, Tampa, FL, 2022
  • "Mariette Pathy Allen," Antidote Curates (with the support of Gucci), Paris, France, 2022
  • "House Ball, Harlem, 1984," CLAMP, NYC, 2022
  • "Transformations," CLAMP, NYC, 2021
  • "Mariette Pathy Allen: Rites of Passage, 1978-2006", Museum of Sex, NYC, 2019
  • "TransCuba - Photographs by Mariette Pathy Allen", Stonewall Museum, 2018
  • "Transcendents: Spirit Mediums in Burma and Thailand", curated by Deborah Rabinsky, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center, Allentown, PA
  • “Transoceanic”, Cenesex, Cuba, 2017
  • “Transgender USA”, Power Plant Gallery, Durham, NC 2016
  • “TransCuba”, Yeelen Gallery, Miami 2015
  • “TransCuba”, Curated by Cenesex Staff, Cenesex, Cuba, December 2014- 2015
  • “TransCuba”, with Vince Cianni, Daylight Project Space, Hillsborough, NC, 2014
  • "TransCuba", Daylight exhibition space, Hillsborough, NC, 2014
  • “Transformations”, Vassar College, 2011
  • “Beyond The Gender Frontier”, Bridgewater State College, 2007
  • “Transgender”, L’Usine Galerie, Brussels, Belgium, 2007
  • “Animate and Inanimate”, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR. 2002
  • “The Gender Frontier”, Gallery 1401, U. of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 2001
  • “The Gender Frontier”, Hungarian House of Photography, Budapest, 2000
  • “Transformations”, Carpenter Center, Harvard U., Cambridge, MA, 1995
  • “Transformations”, Provincetown Arts Association, MA. 1991
  • “Transformations”, Simon Lowinsky Gallery, NYC, 1990
  • “The Beholder’s Eye: Men As Women”, Light Work Gallery, Syracuse U., 1988
  • “Men As Women”, Il Diaframma Gallery, Milan, Italy, 1987

Selected Group Exhibitions

  • "Studio 54: Night Magic," Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, 2020
  • "Shape of Light: Defining Photographs from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center", James Kloppenburg and T. Barton Thurber, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, New York, 2019
  • "Queer Forms", Howard Oransky, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, 2019
  • "Aperture Photographs", 50 years at Aperture, Aperture Foundation, NYC, 2019
  • “Intersectionality”, Richard Haden, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, FL, 2016
  • “HERoine”, Elizabeth Houston, Elizabeth Houston Gallery, NYC ’15-‘16
  • “What’s INSIDE HER Never Dies, a Black Woman’s Legacy”, Karla Ferguson, Yeelen Gallery, Miami, FL ‘15-16
  • “Dealers Choice Exhibit”, Curated by Dean Kotula, Salty Dog Gallery, ME, 2015
  • “TransCuba”, Rayko Photo Center, Curated by Ann Jastrab, San Francisco, 2015
  • “What Is A Portrait”, Curated by Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Ripe Art Gallery, NY, 2014-2015
  • “TransCuba”, Curated by Fabian Goncalves Borrega, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC, 2014
  • “The Gender Frontier and Beyond”, NIU Art Museum, DeKalb, IL, 2014
  • "Discoveries of the Meeting Place" , Fotofest, 2014, Houston, TX
  • "Critical Mass Top 50", traveling exhibition: Corden/Potts, SF, Houston Center for Photography, 2014
  • "International Photography Awards", Hossein Farmani, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, 2013
  • “Science, Poetry and the Photographic Image”, Women’s Caucus, SPE, Atlanta, GA 2011
  • “BED”, Umbrella Arts Gallery, New York, NY, 2010
  • “13th International Photo Festival”, Lishui, China, 2009
  • “Burning Down The House:…”, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, 2008
  • “Does Gender Still Matter?” Curated by Elizabeth Mix, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN, 2007
  • “Indwelling”, Joyce Tenneson, curator. Cooper Union, NYC, 2007
  • The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974--1984, 2006
  • “Bearings: The Female Figure”, PS 122, Allen Frame, curator. NYC 2006
  • “7. Internationale Fototage”, Tina Schelhorn, curator. Mannheim/Ludwigshafen, 2005
  • “Fokus Mensch”, Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim, Germany, 2004
  • “The History of Sex in New York City”, The Museum of Sex, NYC, 2003
  • “Koerper IV”, Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna, Austria 2001
  • “Picturing the Modern Amazon”, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC, 2000
  • “Manly”, Art in General, NYC, 2000
  • “Discoveries of the Meeting Place”, Fotofest, Houston, TX, 2000
  • “Eight Million Stories...”, NY public Library, NY, 1998-99
  • “Group Therapy”, Tatar/Alexander Gallery, Toronto, CA, 1998
  • “The Female Gaze: Women Look at Men”, Pyramid Arts Center, Rochester, NY, 1998
  • “Gender Affects”, U. of Indiana, Bloomington, IN, 1996
  • “Medical Re-visions”, Delta Axis, Memphis, TN, & PS 122, NYC, 1994
  • “Dress Code”, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, 1993

Online Exhibitions

  • THE WEEK, 2017
  • BBC, 2015
  • Refinery 29, 2015
  • The Bay Area Reporter, 2015
  • SFGATE, 2015
  • San Francisco Chronicle, 2015
  • New York Times, 2015
  • It’s Nice That, 2015
  • Don’t take Pictures, 2015
  • NPR- Latino USA, 2015
  • Photo Eye, 2014
  • Daily Beast- “The Daily Beast's Best Coffee Table Books of 2014”, 2014
  • Lens Culture, 2014
  • NEA, 2014
  • Huffington Post, 2014
  • Slate, 2014
  • Queerty, 2014
  • Out, 2014
  • OutSmart, 2014
  • Juxtapoz, 2014
  • World Photography Organisation, 2014
  • Slate, 2013
  • Featureshoot, 2013
  • Lomography, 2013
  • “Shape Shifters”, Forward Thinking Museum, 2011
  • “The Gender Frontier”, Zone Zero, 2010

Consultant & Still Photographer for Films

  • “It's Not the Sex . . . It's the Gender”, Never a Dull Momend Productions, David N. Gottlieb, 2015
  • “Just Gender”, Top Dog Productions, 2013
  • “Southern Comfort”, Grand Jury Prize Sundance 2001, HBO ‘02 ,DVD ’03
  • “The Transgender Revolution”, Q Ball Productions, for A&E, October, 1998
  • “The Transexual Menace”, Rosa Von Praunheim, for German & French TV, 1996
  • “Down and Out In America”, directed by Lee Grant for HBO, 1985
  • “What Sex Am I?”, directed by Lee Grant for HBO, 1984

Awards

  • Julia Margaret Cameron Award, Honorable Mention, 2020
  • Pioneer Award, Fantasia Fair, 2014
  • “Discoveries of the Meeting Place,” Fotofest, 2000 & 2014
  • “Top 50”, Critical Mass, Photolucida, 2013
  • Lambda Literary Award for “The Gender Frontier,” 2004
  • President, Professional Women Photographers, 1984-1991
  • New York State Council on the Arts Grant, 1988

Education

  • B.A. Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
  • B.F.A., M.F.A. Graduate School of Fine Arts, U. of Pennsylvania, in painting. Awarded Thornton-Oakley Prize

Recent Magazine Features


  • Antidote Curates, 2022
  • Sixteen Journal, October 2020.    
  • Mariette Pathy Allen, “Communicate Sacredness, Build it, Share it and Spread it,” Candy Transversal,  2019
  • Claudia Steinberg, “Mariette Pathy Allen,” Tank, 2019
  • Molly Petrilla, “Beyond the Binary,” The Pennsylvania Gazette, March/April 2019
  • Jenna Mulhall-Brereton,“Transcendents: Spirit Mediums in Burma and Thailand,” Zeke, Spring 2018
  • Philip Gefter, “Transformations: MariettePathy Allen,” Aperture 229: Future Gender, Winter 2017

Recent Press


  • Jean Dykstra, "The Photograph Five: Mariette Pathy Allen," Photograph Magazine, 2023 (LINK)
  • Makeda Best, "Voiced from the Collections: Photographer Mariette Pathy Allen in Conversation with Curator Makeda Best," Harvard Art Museums, 2021 (LINK)
  • Oscar Holland, “How Spirit Mediums Blur Gender Lines in Southeast Asia,” CNN Style, 2020 (LINK)
  • Lauren Hansen, “Crossdressers and the Photographer who Loved Them,” The Week, 2018 (LINK)   
  • Kashmira Gander, “Mariette Pathy Allen’s Stunning Photos Give a Glimpse into the Lives of Trans People Over Four Decades,” International Business Times, 2018 (LINK)
  • Jackie Mansky, “Photos Celebrate the Lives of Gender Non-Conforming Spirit Mediums in Southeast Asia,” Smithsonian Magazine, 2017 (LINK) 

Recent Reviews


  • Ellyn Kail, "From the 1970s to Now, Mariette Pathy Allen Traces Transgender Stories," Feature Shoot, 2023 (LINK)
  • Miss Rosen, "Atmospheric Photographs of the 80s Harlem Drag Scene," i-D, 2022 (LINK)
  • Nadja Sayej, “See 40 Years of Photographs Documenting the Beauty ofGender Expression,” i-D, 2019 (LINK) 
  • David Rosenberg, “Mariette Pathy Allen: Rites of Passage, 1978-2006,” Photograph, 2019 (LINK)
  • Zoe Sinclair, “Mariette Pathy Allen: A Right to Love and a Right to Humanity,” Metal, 2019 (LINK) 
  • Lexi Manatakis, “Four Decades of Photos Show American Trans Communities Living and Loving,” Dazed, 2019 (LINK) 
  • Christopher Harrity, “25 Scenes Spanning 40 Years of Trans* History,” Advocate, 2019 (LINK) 
Using Format