Captive Beauty Focuses a Nuanced Lens

Accomplished fine-art photographer Frank Noelker has put animals in the center of his work over the course of his decades-long career. Among his many solo exhibits across multiple galleries and universities, “Of Animals” at the Sheldon Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, stands out. Frank Noelker’s body of work in this 2009 show encompassed images of zoo animals, inviting audiences to consider how zoos both preserve and limit the lives of his subjects.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch review of the exhibit noted how well it captured that paradox at the heart of the mission of contemporary zoos. In Mr. Noelker’s photographs, which he made through traveling to hundreds of zoos, the majesty and individuality of each animal subject are easily apparent. At the same time, a central goal of his work is to highlight the fact that the animals live in circumscribed, artificial environments from which there is no escape. They essentially live at the pleasure of their human caretakers, regardless of humane treatment and any backdrops created to resemble their original habitats.

The exhibit also included some of Mr. Noelker’s more recent photos of chimpanzees rescued from laboratories or from small roadside attractions. The fact that chimps are so close to humans in their range of expressiveness made the inclusion of these photos even more poignant and disturbing.

The photographer’s perspective, which directly confronts questions about the nature of freedom and personal autonomy, is also on view in the book Captive Beauty: Zoo Portraits by Frank Noelker. Published by the University of Illinois Press, the collection includes 50 color photographs, accompanied by a specially written foreword by renowned primatologist Jane Goodall.