Rhonda Payne, St. Gabriel, Louisiana
June 25, 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
2014.177.45
Art Historical Context
Deborah Luster's *Rhonda Payne, St Gabriel, Louisiana* (1999) is an intimate portrait photograph that captures a moment in the life of its subject from the small town of St. Gabriel in Louisiana. Created on June 25, 1999, this work exemplifies Luster's interest in personal identity and place, rendered in a compact 5 × 4-inch format that draws viewers close for a direct, empathetic encounter. Printed as a gelatin silver print on, the image combines the rich tonal depth of traditional darkroom photography—gelatin silver being a hallmark of 20th-century black-and-white processes—with the modern ...
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 ...