Mary E. Frey

Mary E. Frey (born 1948) is an American photographer and educator who lives in western Massachusetts. Her staged scenes of mundane middle-class life, using family, friends and strangers, which appear to be documentary at first sight, are intended to address "the nature of the documentary image in contemporary culture."

In 1984 Frey had a solo exhibition at the Hudson River Museum and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Early life and education Frey grew up in Yonkers, a borough of New York City. She was the oldest of 6 children. Mark Steinmetz wrote in Time that these photographs "seem quite naturalistic, but are in part staged by the photographer, and she avoids the temptation to romanticize."

Collections Frey's work is held in the following permanent collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL: 2 prints (as of April 2021) Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1991. Curated by Peter Galassi. Pictures by Women: a History of Modern Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2010/11 Domestic Rituals & Real Life Dramas, Copenhagen Photo Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2019