Mary Engel

Mary Engel is an award winning filmmaker, the director of the Orkin/Engel Film and Photo Archive, (which includes her parents Ruth Orkin and Morris Engel) and the founder and president of the American Photography Archives Group, APAG.

Engel, (for her role with APAG) is a recent recipient from the Griffin Museum of the Focus Spotlight Award in 2017. The Spotlight award is given to an organization “that consistently shines a light on photography and has created a far reaching impact in the field.”
She has been the director of the Ruth Orkin Photo Archive since its inception in 1985. Engel is responsible for all aspects of running the archive including sales, licensing, marketing, legal issues, and other areas. She works with photography galleries, museums and auction houses throughout the United States and abroad. She has published four catalogs of photography.

Engel’s first film “Ruth Orkin: Frames of Life” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1996, and screened at many other festivals. The film was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of the “Outstanding Documentaries of 1996.” Her film “Morris Engel: The Independent” premiered on Turner Classic Movies in 2009. Engel is a contributing producer on the feature length documentary, “Ordinary Miracles: The Photo League’s New York” 2011.

She has been published in The New York Times, the American Society of Media Photographers magazine, Photo District News and Film Comment. She has lectured at Harvard University, New York University, Brooklyn Historical Society, St. Louis Art Museum, the Central Park Conservancy, and has appeared at the Avon Theater, (Stamford, CT), Loews Jersey (Jersey City, NJ) Film Forum (New York, NY) Metrograph (New York, NY) Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) and the Egyptian Theater (Park City, Utah).