Tuan Tran, Angola, Louisiana
June 24, 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
2014.177.180
Art Historical Context
Deborah Luster’s *Tuan Tran, Angola Louisiana* (June , 1999) is a compact gelatin silver print on aluminum, measuring just 5 × 4 inches. The title points to its subject, Tuan Tran, photographed at Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary—a vast, historic maximum-security facility often called “The Farm” for its forced-labor fields. Created at the turn of the millennium, this work reflects Luster’s documentary approach to portraiture, freezing a specific moment amid the stark realities of incarceration in the American South. The medium exemplifies traditional darkroom precision: gelatin silver...
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 ...