"Mark Stockton: 100 People," an exhibition of one hundred hand-drawn portraits, will be on view at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, February 15–May 31, 2022.
The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation and Penn Live Arts at the Annenberg Center are pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Philadelphia artist Mark Stockton. Mark Stockton: 100 People comprises a group of one hundred hand-drawn portraits intended to be received as a single work in form and experience, while each portrayed subject’s direct eye contact with the viewer addresses the objectifying nature of portraiture head-on.
The exhibition will be on view February 15–May 31, 2022, with one hundred works installed throughout the public spaces of the Annenberg Center, filling the main Arts Lounge as well as the galleries adjacent to the Zellerbach Theater.
About the Exhibition
Portraits have a complex history – they have the potential to venerate, to emotionally connect, to resonate into lived experience – they are also tools of commodification, objectification, and colonialization. Mark Stockton: 100 People examines who and how we venerate and connect.
What is representation in a larger sense? Using demographics to structure an equitable range of representation, and selecting subjects from a range of time periods – from the beginnings of portrait photography (1839) to the present – the ongoing series seeks to create an evolving canon of portraits, reflecting an expanded narrative of history and identity while centering ideas of inclusivity and subjectivity. Often sourced from recommendations and further reading, the selection process is opened-up beyond the limitations of the artist’s pre-existing knowledge base; the time-intensive drawings invite further reflection. Each portrait, connecting through an active gaze, looks back on the viewer, collapsing time and space divides, offering different points of connections to different people.
“We are so excited to be able to present such an ambitious and important project,” says Sachs Program Executive Director John McInerney. “Mark’s portraiture is striking in its ability to draw you into his subjects, who represent a wide range of perspectives and voices.”
Mark Stockton: 100 People is the second exhibition to be featured in the Annenberg Center’s Arts Lounge, a new hub for the creative community at Penn and part of a $2M renovation of the Annenberg Center’s public spaces made possible by a generous gift from alumni Keith and Kathy Sachs.
Exhibition Programming
Mark Stockton will be completing a few final pieces for the installation in live drawing sessions during the exhibition. These sessions will be scheduled for most Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 AM to 2 PM in the Arts Lounge at the Annenberg Center. Visitors are welcome to attend.
There will also be a conversation with the artist in March, details to follow.
Follow the Sachs Program on Instagram for the latest information about the exhibition and other arts happenings across campus.
About the Artist
Mark Stockton is a Philadelphia-based artist. His drawings have been shown both nationally and internationally with exhibitions in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York, London, and Beijing. Originally from the West Coast, he received his BFA from Oregon State University in 1996 and his MFA in Painting and Drawing from Syracuse University in 2000. Since 2009, Mark has worked with the independent arts organization Vox Populi as both a contributing artist and as a board member. His work is in many private and public collections, including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the West Collection.
Mark currently teaches design and drawing at Drexel University. He lives in Philly with his wife, Cindy, his two kids, Otto and Iona, and his dog, Elsie. A closer look at recent works and projects can be found at his website.
Exhibition Website
Visit the exhibition microsite at the link below for additional information about all the exhibition’s portrait subjects, with a Wikipedia hyperlink provided for each.
Exhibition Portraits
- Abraham Lincoln
- Frederick Douglas
- Harriet Tubman
- Gertrude Stein
- Greta Thunberg
- Jerry Garcia
- Nelson Mandela
- Mother Teresa
- Woody Guthrie
- Joan Didion
- Toni Morrison
- James Baldwin
- Lebron James
- Jim Thorpe
- Yoko Ono
- Paul Thek
- Susan Sontag
- Herman Melville
- Sitting Bull
- Rosa Parks
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- William Morris
- Upton Sinclair
- Noam Chomsky
- Henry David Thoreau
- Rebecca Solnit
- Patti Smith
- Hannah Arendt
- Sun Ra
- Amelia Earhart
- Angela Davis
- Sonia Sotomayor
- Princess Diana
- Marian Anderson
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Willie Nelson
- Dolly Parton
- Jackie Robinson
- Emma Goldman
- John Burroughs
- Frida Kahlo
- Octavia Butler
- Cesar Chavez
- Temple Grandin
- John Lewis
- Ai Weiwei
- Jesse Owens
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Allen Ginsburg
- Robert Cornelius
- Walt Whitman
- Mahatma Ghandi
- Pope Francis
- Dolores Huerta
- Alan Turing
- Alice Neel
- Jane Goodall
- Stacey Abrams
- W.E.B. DuBois
- Masha Gessen
- Duke Kahanamoku
- Dalai Lama
- Timnit Gibru
- Malala Yousafzai
- Chloé Zhao
- Haruki Murakami
- Moxie Marlinspike
- Paul Stamets
- Christa McAuliffe
- Kurt Cobain
- Marie Curie
- Audre Lorde
- Questlove
- Natalie Wynn
- Harry Dodge
- Jillian Tamaki
- Robert Mapplethorpe
- William Carlos Williams
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Ida B. Wells
- Walter Mercado
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- John Cage
- Riz Ahmed
- Albert Einstein
- Naomi Osaka
- Misty Copeland
- Thurgood Marshall
- Alice Wong
- Harry Dodge
- Kathleen Hanna
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- George Saunders
- Jamal Kashoggi
- John Coltrane
- Alice Coltrane
- Megan Rapinoe
This exhibition was made possible with support from The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation and was produced by Penn Arts Live and The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.