Dorothea Lange Research Paper
Dorothea
Lange
An American Photographer
Dorothea Lange, born May 26, 1895 and passed Oct 11, 1965 would best be described as an artistic and political intellectual, working systematically toward refining the emotional and political communicative power of her photography. She attended the New York Training School for Teachers from 1914 to 1917, and there decided to become a photographer, partly influenced by visits to the photographer Arnold Genthe. From 1917 to 1918 she attended a photography course run by Clarence
H. White at Columbia University, NY before moving to San Francisco in 1918, and setting up a successful portrait studio where she took works such as Clayburgh Children, San Francisco …show more content…
in 1919.
Even though Dorothea started to grow tired of the portrait business she had created for herself, she would come back to it in a different way years later. So she set out to try more landscapes and plant photography, only to find herself just as dissatisfied. With the Stock Market crash of 1929 Lange turned to the effects of the economic decline, and started looking for subjects outside her studio where she took photographs such as General Strike, San Francisco.
She had her first onewoman show at the Brockhurst Studio of Willard Van Dyke in Oakland,
CA (1934), and met the economist Paul Schuster Taylor, in that same year, under whom she worked for the California State Emergency Relief Administration in 1935. Later that year she transferred to the
Resettlement Administration (later called the Farm Security Administration [FSA]), to deal with the problem of the migration of agricultural workers. Most known for her photo title “Migrant Mother,” an image of a mother (Florence Owens Thompson) and three children. The image depicts an anxious, and distracted mother. It was during this time that, as a photographer, her assignment was to document the need for Farm Security Administration programs. Lange first photographed migrant worker camps, being layered in mud or covered in dust. She provided images of filthy water supplies and children covered in flies. This is when she fell back on her strength. Always a portrait photographer, she turned
the same eye toward the poor she had previously directed toward the rich. She made portraits of farm workings within the same visual conventions used in studios. However the change in subject matter made them, at the time, unconventional, startling, and gripping.
Other photographers of that time started to see her work as a new developing style. The most noticeable thing about Lange’s images is, although documenting pain, poor work conditions, poverty, and suffering, they are still very pleasing to the eye and yet educational at the same time. I think this is what makes her images so unique, and why, of the dozen or so photographers the FSA employed, her’s were always the most popular.
In 1939, in collaboration with Taylor, who provided the text, she published An American
Exodus, which dealt with the same social problems. In 1941 she was awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship, and this allowed her to take a series of photographs of religious groups in the USA, such as those of the Amish people. In 1942 she worked for the War Relocation Authority and from 1943 to
1945 for the Office of War Information in San Francisco. Illness prevented her working from 1945 to
1951, after which she produced photographs of the Mormons and of rural life in Ireland for
articles inLife in 1954 and 1955. In 1958–9 she worked with Taylor in East Asia where most of her images excluded the subjects face. Bringing attention to the body language and gestures of their culture. In 1960 accompanied him to South America. She worked in Egypt and the Middle East in 1962–3, producing such photographs as Procession Bearing Food to the Dead, Upper Egypt in the detached, documentary style that characterizes all her work.
Works Cited
“Lange, Dorothea.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 13 Mar. 2009. http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3373 "Dorothea Lange." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Oct. 2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.
.
Gordon, L. (2008, November 13). Visual Democracy: Dorothea Lange. YouTube. Retrieved
October 28, 2013, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXvHPUKGek
Lange
An American Photographer
Dorothea Lange, born May 26, 1895 and passed Oct 11, 1965 would best be described as an artistic and political intellectual, working systematically toward refining the emotional and political communicative power of her photography. She attended the New York Training School for Teachers from 1914 to 1917, and there decided to become a photographer, partly influenced by visits to the photographer Arnold Genthe. From 1917 to 1918 she attended a photography course run by Clarence
H. White at Columbia University, NY before moving to San Francisco in 1918, and setting up a successful portrait studio where she took works such as Clayburgh Children, San Francisco …show more content…
in 1919.
Even though Dorothea started to grow tired of the portrait business she had created for herself, she would come back to it in a different way years later. So she set out to try more landscapes and plant photography, only to find herself just as dissatisfied. With the Stock Market crash of 1929 Lange turned to the effects of the economic decline, and started looking for subjects outside her studio where she took photographs such as General Strike, San Francisco.
She had her first onewoman show at the Brockhurst Studio of Willard Van Dyke in Oakland,
CA (1934), and met the economist Paul Schuster Taylor, in that same year, under whom she worked for the California State Emergency Relief Administration in 1935. Later that year she transferred to the
Resettlement Administration (later called the Farm Security Administration [FSA]), to deal with the problem of the migration of agricultural workers. Most known for her photo title “Migrant Mother,” an image of a mother (Florence Owens Thompson) and three children. The image depicts an anxious, and distracted mother. It was during this time that, as a photographer, her assignment was to document the need for Farm Security Administration programs. Lange first photographed migrant worker camps, being layered in mud or covered in dust. She provided images of filthy water supplies and children covered in flies. This is when she fell back on her strength. Always a portrait photographer, she turned
the same eye toward the poor she had previously directed toward the rich. She made portraits of farm workings within the same visual conventions used in studios. However the change in subject matter made them, at the time, unconventional, startling, and gripping.
Other photographers of that time started to see her work as a new developing style. The most noticeable thing about Lange’s images is, although documenting pain, poor work conditions, poverty, and suffering, they are still very pleasing to the eye and yet educational at the same time. I think this is what makes her images so unique, and why, of the dozen or so photographers the FSA employed, her’s were always the most popular.
In 1939, in collaboration with Taylor, who provided the text, she published An American
Exodus, which dealt with the same social problems. In 1941 she was awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship, and this allowed her to take a series of photographs of religious groups in the USA, such as those of the Amish people. In 1942 she worked for the War Relocation Authority and from 1943 to
1945 for the Office of War Information in San Francisco. Illness prevented her working from 1945 to
1951, after which she produced photographs of the Mormons and of rural life in Ireland for
articles inLife in 1954 and 1955. In 1958–9 she worked with Taylor in East Asia where most of her images excluded the subjects face. Bringing attention to the body language and gestures of their culture. In 1960 accompanied him to South America. She worked in Egypt and the Middle East in 1962–3, producing such photographs as Procession Bearing Food to the Dead, Upper Egypt in the detached, documentary style that characterizes all her work.
Works Cited
“Lange, Dorothea.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 13 Mar. 2009. http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3373 "Dorothea Lange." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Oct. 2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.
.
Gordon, L. (2008, November 13). Visual Democracy: Dorothea Lange. YouTube. Retrieved
October 28, 2013, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXvHPUKGek