Robert Mann Gallery is a New York based fine art gallery specializing in photography, established in 1985. The gallery’s program includes exhibitions of vintage masterworks as well as installations of contemporary photography that contextualize and promote newer movements in the field. The gallery is a member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) where Mann has served on the executive board of directors for over 10 years.
Gallery owner Robert Mann's career began in 1977 when he started working with veteran dealer Harry Lunn at his gallery in Washington, D.C.,one of the first and few art galleries devoted to the exhibition and sales of fine art photography. After six years, by which time Mann had been promoted to gallery director, Mann decided to move back to New York City to take a job as the director of Light Gallery, legendary for launching the careers of such masters as Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Two years later, in 1985, Mann was ready to strike out on his own. Doing business as fotomann, inc, he started dealing privately on East 76th Street. Practitioners like Joe Deal, Richard Misrach and Aaron Siskind, whose trust he'd earned at Light Gallery, came along. Gradually Mann transitioned into a public space, expanded, and ultimately moved to Chelsea in 1999, where the gallery remains today at 210 Eleventh Avenue. The Robert Mann Gallery was the first photography gallery to move into the then new art neighborhood of Chelsea. With a 6,000-square-foot (560 m2) space it was also the largest photography gallery in New York at the time.
When the gallery relocated to Chelsea it expanded its roster with international mid-career and emerging photographic artists, reflecting its position within the heart of New York’s contemporary art scene.
Mann was the first New York dealer to exhibit Richard Misrach in the 1980s at Light Gallery and then at fotomann and Robert Mann Gallery. The gallery became well known for its close dealings with luminaries like O. Winston Link and Aaron Siskind, as well as its expertise in the markets of Ansel Adams and W. Eugene Smith. Significant historical exhibitions have included monographic shows of Ansel Adams, Ellen Auerbach and ringl+pit, Robert Frank, O. Winston Link, Aaron Siskind, W. Eugene Smith and Margaret Watkins. The gallery has been the long-time representative of well-known artists such as Jeff Brouws, Joe Deal, Wijnanda Deroo, Robbert Flick, Michael Kenna, Leo Rubinfien, Susan Rankaitis, Jem Southam, Richard Steinheimer, and Silvio Wolf, while also taking on younger artists like Gail Albert Halaban, Holly Andres, Julie Blackmon and Mary Mattingly.
The gallery has published catalogues of work by – among others – Wijnanda Deroo, Elijah Gowin, Chip Hooper, Artur Nikodem, Susan Rankaitis, and Aaron Siskind (The Fragmentation of Language, Vintage Works, Aaron Siskind 100).
Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Gail Albert Halaban, Holly Andres, Diane Arbus, Ellen Auerbach, Julie Blackmon, Jeff Brouws, Harry Callahan, Joe Deal, Wijnanda Deroo, Walker Evans, Robbert Flick, Robert Frank, Masahisa Fukase, Leslie Gill, Elijah Gowin, Chip Hooper, Stephen Hughes, Michael Kenna, O. Winston Link, Mary Mattingly, Laurent Millet, Richard Misrach, Lisette Model, Artur Nikodem, Charles Pratt, Susan Rankaitis, Man Ray, res, ringl+pit, Leo Rubinfien, Aaron Siskind, W. Eugene Smith, Jem Southam, Richard Steinheimer, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, David Vestal, Margaret Watkins, Weegee, Dan Weiner, Henry Wessel, Silvio Wolf