Vermont Center for Photography

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Martin Frank: Doing Time-Images of Eastern State Penitentiary

Martin Frank

- Jan 2011

When Eastern State Penitentiary first opened its gates to accept prisoners on October 25, 1829, it was not merely the largest and most expensive publicly funded building in the new Republic.  It was revolutionary in both its architectural and philosophical design.  At a time when President Andrew Jackson used an outhouse in the Executive Mansion, prisoners here had flush toilets, as well as hot running water. While contemporary prisons throughout the world were based on corporal punishment as a means of divesting a prisoner of his sense of self, Eastern State Penitentiary was the world’s first true penitentiary.  It hoped to reform its prisoners by bringing them closer to God - by encouraging their individual search for penance.  Thus each cell, which housed an isolated prisoner, was lit by a glass skylight, termed the Eye of God, through which God was believed to be diligently watching them.  Arched cells and hallways were similarly to invoke the spirit of a Church.

In 1971, eighty thousand prisoners (including Al Capone) later, Easter State Penitentiary closed its gates.  Now its arched cells, illuminated by beams of light through God’s Eyes (its ubiquitous long-necked electric lamps, long extinguished) enclose a haunting, eerie, disordered world of cracked paint, rotting institutional furniture and crumbling walls.  Here, I’ve used my camera to capture the interplay of shadow and light, of architectural structure and chaos caused by years of decay to offer a new interpretation of the perhaps cliched term..."doing time.”

Martin Frank’s exhibit, Doing Time: Images of Eastern State Penitentiary will open during Gallery walk on January 7 at 5:30pm and will be on view through January 30.

The exhibition is sponsored in part by Daniel S. Kirshner, LLC. 

A selection of images from the exhibit

  • Martin Frank: Doing Time-Images of Eastern State Penitentiary
  • Martin Frank: Doing Time-Images of Eastern State Penitentiary
  • Martin Frank: Doing Time-Images of Eastern State Penitentiary
  • Martin Frank: Doing Time-Images of Eastern State Penitentiary
  • Martin Frank: Doing Time-Images of Eastern State Penitentiary
  • Martin Frank: Doing Time-Images of Eastern State Penitentiary
  • Martin Frank: Doing Time-Images of Eastern State Penitentiary

Past Exhibits