In the 1950s, when Boston was a major Navy port, the area around Washington Street became known as the Combat Zone; the name derived from the Shore Patrolmen, who prowled the rock- and-roll bars, busting the heads of sailors. By the 1970s, when Angier spent two and half years (1973-1975) photographing the area, the sailors and patrolmen were gone, and the rock-and-roll bars had been replaced by strip clubs.
Angier used his Leica to capture more than the mere fantasies of customers; his interest was in the complexity of the people of “adult entertainment” community. He became acquainted with many of the strippers and showgirls who allowed him to photograph them. Angier’s pictures of these people suggest that “…there is a lot which they never reveal on stage, or in their breezy conversations in the dark shadows of the clubs; qualities of grace, wit, resilience, and singleness of heart”.
From 1978-1982, Angier continued his social documentary work, exploring the Native American communities of New Mexico and Arizona. Having driven through the area numerous times, and influenced by Robert Frank’s image of an Indian bar on Highway 66 in Gallup, N.M., Angier began photographing the towns surrounding the Navajo reservation. Angier’s images depict a people trying to persevere in the midst of a community gripped by increasing marginalization and debilitating alcoholism.
Roswell Angier has taught photography for over 35 years; he currently heads the photography program at Tufts University. Angier’s work is included in numerous institutional collections including: Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts; Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, Massachusetts; Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C.; Wells Fargo Bank, Los Angeles, California.
By Roswell Angier : “It seems like what has been done in the way of magazine articles and stuff like that”, one of the strippers at the Two O’Clock Club tells me, “has to do with the really raunchy girls. Or the really freaky looking girls. There’s this one girl, for instance, who’s even bigger than Chesty Morgan. She is, honestly. Her breasts are bigger than watermelons. She has to harness them up.” She tells me about Honeysuckle Divine, who does “pussy tricks” on stage, like playing harmonicas with her cunt. And she talks about the prevalence of silicone; about a girl who had injections in her breasts, thighs, legs and buttocks. She is quite matter-of-fact about it. “After a while,” she says, “you get to be able to tell who’s had silicone. The top of the boob doesn’t move at all. It’s like cement. There was one girl who had some shots in her nose and her cheeks. She had to sleep sitting up every night or it would slip into some other part of her body.”
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