Hippopotamus, Paris, 1998, Frank Noelker

From the foreward to Captive Beauty
Frank Noelker’s work makes a powerful statement. It is both beautiful and profoundly disturbing. He has captured, in this series of portraits, the very essence of the problem of zoos. For here we see “wild” animals who are no longer wild. In some instances the walls of their cages have been skillfully painted so that, at a quick glance, they appear to be large, spacious enclosures – in their natural habitat, almost. Yet the artwork, the painted trees and vines and flowers, serves only to render more heartbreaking their stark imprisonment. This book is not intended as an indictment against all zoos but rather as a plea for greater understanding of the animal beings within them...Let us hope that the day will come when the steel-barred cage, the concrete island, and bare, sterile enclosures of all sorts will be no more. Frank’s work, with its implicit plea for our sympathy and understanding, will play a part in making this happen.

Jane Goodall,
National Geographic Society
Explorer-in-Residence

Frank Noelker is an associate professor of art in UConn’s School of Fine Arts. His photographs of animals in zoos have been widely exhibited, both in solo and group exhibitions and are included in the permanent collections of a number of museums. His new book, Captive Beauty: Zoo Portraits by Frank Noelker, was published earlier this year by University of Illinois Press.