Jerry "Dobie" Lowrey, Angola, Louisiana
March 18, 1999
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print on aluminum
Dimensions
image/plate: 12.7 × 10.2 cm (5 × 4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Julia J. Norrell, in Honor of Claude Simard and the 25th Anniversary of Photography at the National Gallery of Art
Accession Number
2014.177.38
Art Historical Context
Deborah Luster's *Jerry "Dobie" Low, Angola, Louisiana* (1999) is a poignant gelatin silver print on aluminum, capturing the stark reality of life at the Louisiana State Penit, known as Angola. This maximum-security facility, once a brutal slave plantation, has long symbolized America's complex history of incarceration, labor, and redemption. Luster, a deeply engaged with themes of crime, punishment, and humanity, created intimate portraits like this one during visits to Angola, humanizing individuals often reduced to statistics. The image, measuring 5 × 4 inches, employs the classic gelatin ...
About the Artist
Deborah Luster
Deborah Luster, born in 1951 in Bend, Oregon, grew up in Northwest Arkansas and later made her home in New Orleans, Louisiana, with additional time spent in Galway, Ireland. Her path to photography was profoundly shaped by personal tragedy: the 1988 murder of her mother, which prompted her to take up the medium as a means of processing grief and exploring violence's aftermath. Luster attended the ...