Mange, Arthur P.

Tent caterpillar

Arthur Mange joined the Zoology Department (later the Biology Department) at the University of Massachusetts from the Midwest in 1964. He taught primarily genetics and with his wife, Elaine, co-authored several award-winning college textbooks of human genetics. Following retirement in 1997, he served on a number of committees in Amherst, including chair of the Conservation Commission, and currently serves on the Committee for the Burnett Gallery at the Jones Library in Amherst. Mange is a member of the Pioneer Valley Photographic Artists, whose members are dedicated to fine art photography. This group maintains rotating exhibits at the Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Bay State Hospital in Springfield, and the Nashawannuck Gallery in Easthampton.

For over half a century, Mange has taken thousands of black and white photographs of varied subjects. The pictures are from many places around the world, with about half of them from New England and the East coast. Like many photographers, Mange tries to present interesting (if possible unusual or artful), real-life images with nice composition, form, texture, and resolution. They faithfully record things that have caught his eye along the way.

Mange has participated in a score of solo or group photo shows at hospitals, libraries, banks, and other sites in Amherst, Northampton, Pelham, Hadley, Leverett, and Southampton. The subject of these shows have included mysterious images including close-ups, gravestones, plants and animals, architecture, local sights, windows, pictures taken looking down, whimsical signs, and travel pictures.