Michael Ruth, Angola, Louisiana
September 17, 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
2014.177.138
Art Historical Context
Deborah Luster's *Michael Ruth, Angola, Louisiana* (1999) captures a poignant portrait from her acclaimed series documenting inmates at Louisiana's Angola State Penitentiary, one of the nation's oldest and most notorious maximum-security prisons. Established in the late 19th century on a former slave plantation, Angola has long symbolized the harsh realities of the American incarceration system, where many prisoners serve life sentences amid grueling labor. Luster's work humanizes these individuals, presenting them not as abstractions but as complex people with names and stories, inviting view...
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 ...