Mark Cohen was born in 1943 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and with the exception of a short time in Europe, lived and worked there for most of his life. Cohen worked for many years as a portrait photographer at his studio in Wilkes-Barr and his personal work on the streets was made in his spare time. His work was first exhibited in 1969 at the George Eastman House but came to prominence with his first solo exhibition at MoMA in 1973. Cohen is the recipient of two Guggenheim Grants and his work is held by numerous public collections including Centre Pompidou, Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney, New York; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art; and V&A Museum, London. His work has been the subject of international exhibitions and the most recent retrospective was in 2013 at Le Bal in Paris and accompanied by the publication 'Dark Knees'. In 2015 'Frame'. 'A Retrospective' was published by the University of Texas press. In 2014 he moved to Philadelphia.