Artist
Danny Lyon (American, born 1942)American, born 1942
CultureAmerican
Titles
- Cell Block, Ramsey, Texas
Date1967
Place depictedRosharon, Texas, United States
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 13 1/4 × 8 15/16 in. (33.7 × 22.7 cm)
Sheet: 13 15/16 × 11 in. (35.4 × 27.9 cm)
Sheet: 13 15/16 × 11 in. (35.4 × 27.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of T. Fuller Pentecost and Dr. Aubert C. Dykes
Object number2003.174
Not on view
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Department
PhotographyObject Type
For over a year, the photographer Danny Lyon photographed the daily lives of men shut away in seven penitentiaries across the state of Texas. “This work was from the beginning an effort to somehow emotionally convey the spirit of imprisonment shared by 250,000 men in the United States,” Lyon writes in the foreword to his resulting book Conversations with the Dead. “The resulting work is not meant to be seen as a study of the Texas Department of Corrections. Had I been given the opportunity, I could have made an analogous work in any of the fifty-one American prison systems.”
ProvenanceT. Fuller Pentecost and Dr. Aubert C. Dykes; given to MFAH, 2003.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Marked in pencil on the mat, lower center below image: "DANNY LYON "CELL BLOCK" RAMSEY, TEXAS 1967 (CONVERSATIONS P. 118)"
Marked in pencil on verso lower left: " 'Cell Block' p. 118 J.S."
Marked in pencil on verso lower right: RAMSEY / SAT. AFTERNOON"
Marked in pencil on verso upper center: reading vertically "6 7-7 (?) / 690-60 (?)"
Marked in pencil on verso lower left: " 'Cell Block' p. 118 J.S."
Marked in pencil on verso lower right: RAMSEY / SAT. AFTERNOON"
Marked in pencil on verso upper center: reading vertically "6 7-7 (?) / 690-60 (?)"
Marked in pencil on verso lower right: "Danny Lyon / 12-77/1"
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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