First published: December 2025
Making items from cigarette packets and paper scraps once provided an escape for inventive prisoners; today those items hold deep meaning for a Boston collector.
A boxy shoulder bag glistening with ivory diamonds, each with a camel head image, made from Camel cigarette boxes. A red-and-white checkered purse made from over 1000 Pall Mall cigarette containers. Another handbag constructed from scraps of magazine pages, the facial features of the women gazing out. These intricate works and many others like them were meticulously woven by prisoners across the USA from 1931 to 1984. The Cell Solace Collection, curated by Antonio Inniss, contains over 100 pieces crafted by over 70 artists, including purses, boxes and more intricate structures such as windmills, rocking chairs and miniature vehicles. Inniss describes the items as representing “love and the human spirit and ingenuity and redemption, and turning nothing into something beautiful, literally”
Mary (container, detail), 1964 (in Zurich Prison, Switzerland), cigarette-packet paper and unravelled socks, 10 x 15 x 10 in. / 25.5 x 38 x 25.5 cm
[The Cell Solace Collection was shown at the Art on Paper art fair in New York in September 2025. “These works, made by incarcerated individuals using found materials, speak to ingenuity and the drive to create even under the most constrained circumstances, says Kelly Freeman of creative events company Art Market Productions. “These artists were incredibly resourceful, and it shows. The works are extraordinary.”
Missing Women, n.d., 1960s magazines and unravelled socks, 11.5 x 8.5 x 2 in. / 29 x 21.5 x 5 cm
For Inniss, the show was the latest step in his long journey with artworks such as these. He began collecting them when he was a little boy. “It all started for me when I was getting bused out to the suburbs from the inner city, from the projects in Boston,” he says.
Born in 1974, Inniss was a part of the METCO (Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity) school integration programme, first established during the Civil Rights Movement, which enabled him to attend school outside the city. It meant long days, leaving home at six in the morning, travelling by bus for nearly an hour, and staying at school for eleven hours.
Purse of Peace, 1960s (in Nevada State Prison, Nevada, USA), cigarette-packet paper and unravelled socks, 10.5 x 11.5 x 2 in. / 26.5 x 29 x 5 cm
By OLIVIA DENG
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #125.
