Old Jail Art Center in Albany, Texas

Across miles of pulverulent vistas from any significant landmark or population center, a fortress of ornately carved limestone blocks imprisons something truly anomalous in small-town central Texas. Built in 1878 as the cutting edge of carceral facilities, the two-story structure once held Albany's frontier miscreants behind heavy steel doors and thick stone walls, but those prisoners are long gone; now, it instead holds the works of Picasso, Renoir, and a slew of their modern-day peers. Externally, the jail betrays little of its metamorphosis. Though it has been expanded and modernized, it st

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