Deborah Luster

(American, b. 1951)

Herald “Bubba” Brand, Angola, Louisiana and Kenneth “Buddy” Woodbury, Angola, Louisiana, 1999

Toned silver gelatin on plate

Edition: 4 of 25

Framed dimensions: 14 1/4 x 15 1/4 inches.

Courtesy of the artist.

Deborah Luster is best known for the photographic series, One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana, a 1998 collaboration with poet C. D. Wright. This portrait collection of portrays prisoners from three Louisiana prisons—including the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Luster’s wider portfolio of photography has been shown at venues including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago; Prospect. 1 International Biennial, New Orleans; Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; Ballroom Marfa, Texas; Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island; and Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon; and others. Her work is in the MoCP collection, among many others. Luster’s awards include the Dorothea Lange—Paul Taylor Prize for Documentary Photography from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University (with C. D. Wright), an Anonymous Was a Woman Award, The John Guttman Award, a Peter S. Reed Foundation Award, and a Bucksbaum Family Award for American Photography (Friends of Photography, San Francisco).

Herald “Bubba” Brand, Angola, Louisiana and Kenneth “Buddy” Woodbury, Angola, Louisiana, 1999