Chelsea Historical Commission
Arnold Jarmak Collection
Detail from:
City Hall spire looking south
In 1977, at age 27, Arnold Jarmak moved to Chelsea, Massachusetts where he set about photographing the city and its people. He captured reality and caught the imagination of the city everyday with his front-page photographs for the daily newspaper, the Chelsea Record. Without affect, without a meaningful interest in personal enrichment, he exposed 20,000 images in Chelsea between 1977 and 1990.
Forty years later his images represent an inspirational look back at the small, struggling, poverty stricken, corrupt American city he came to as a young man during the 1970s. His photographs preserve a grand look into the era and to what is irretrievably gone -- except for his compelling images.
With an artist’s eye and a young man’s fervor, he recorded life in all its vagueries and forms in this unique, small city just one mile from downtown Boston. Jarmak’s unvarnished photographs of Chelsea’s residents and street people, its public officials, and those passing through reveals on the one hand, and preserves on the other, a close look at what came four decades before in Chelsea.
Jarmak expressed daily with his photography the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility of art to capture that experience.
Arnold Jarmak’s family roots are centered around Boston. His family story is America’s story and Boston’s in particular. His great grandmother Louisa Wentworth’s family emigrated to the new world in 1630 to be able to practice their religion. His great-great grandfather Daniel Shannahan emigrated to Boston in the 1840s to escape starvation in Ireland, and his great grandfather Simon Miller left Poland in the 1890s to escape religious persecution
Jarmak’s family has lived in and around Boston since colonial times.
With his historical connection with the region and his desire to be a documentary photographer, Jarmak has produced a time capsule of life in the 1970s and 1980s -- when his role as a photographer for the Chelsea Record allowed him to capture life in the city with his camera every day.
Jarmak’s photographs of Chelsea and surrounding cities now being made available to the public by Digital Commonwealth and the Boston Public Library is a testament to the enduring historical importance of Jarmak’s work.
Forty years later his images represent an inspirational look back at the small, struggling, poverty stricken, corrupt American city he came to as a young man during the 1970s. His photographs preserve a grand look into the era and to what is irretrievably gone -- except for his compelling images.
With an artist’s eye and a young man’s fervor, he recorded life in all its vagueries and forms in this unique, small city just one mile from downtown Boston. Jarmak’s unvarnished photographs of Chelsea’s residents and street people, its public officials, and those passing through reveals on the one hand, and preserves on the other, a close look at what came four decades before in Chelsea.
Jarmak expressed daily with his photography the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility of art to capture that experience.
Arnold Jarmak’s family roots are centered around Boston. His family story is America’s story and Boston’s in particular. His great grandmother Louisa Wentworth’s family emigrated to the new world in 1630 to be able to practice their religion. His great-great grandfather Daniel Shannahan emigrated to Boston in the 1840s to escape starvation in Ireland, and his great grandfather Simon Miller left Poland in the 1890s to escape religious persecution
Jarmak’s family has lived in and around Boston since colonial times.
With his historical connection with the region and his desire to be a documentary photographer, Jarmak has produced a time capsule of life in the 1970s and 1980s -- when his role as a photographer for the Chelsea Record allowed him to capture life in the city with his camera every day.
Jarmak’s photographs of Chelsea and surrounding cities now being made available to the public by Digital Commonwealth and the Boston Public Library is a testament to the enduring historical importance of Jarmak’s work.