Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) - Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California

lot/dorothea lange 1895 1965 migrant mother nipomo california pxSjWMX 632966239 / For sale

lot/dorothea lange 1895 1965 migrant mother nipomo california pxSjWMX 632966239

For salePrice history

lot/dorothea lange 1895 1965 migrant mother nipomo california pxSjWMX 632966239

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Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) - Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California

Exhibition print from DOROTHEA LANGE - PHOTOGRAPHIEN, Galerie Bilderwelt, Berlin 1998 On tour in Germany, Austria and Tel Hai, Israel, 2006. Dorothea Lange took this photograph in 1936, while employed by the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) program, formed during the Great Depression to raise awareness of and provide aid to impoverished farmers. In Nipomo, California, Lange came across Florence Owens Thompson and her children in a camp filled with field workers whose livelihoods were devastated by the failure of the pea crops. Recalling her encounter with Thompson years later, she said, “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction.” One photograph from that shoot, now known as Migrant Mother, was widely circulated to magazines and newspapers and became a symbol of the plight of migrant farm workers during the Great Depression. As Lange described Thompson’s situation, “She and her children had been living on frozen vegetables from the field and wild birds the children caught. The pea crop had frozen; there was no work. Yet they could not move on, for she had just sold the tires from the car to buy food.” However, Thompson later contested Lange’s account. When a reporter interviewed her in the 1970s, she insisted that she and Lange did not speak to each other, nor did she sell the tires of her car. Thompson said that Lange had either confused her for another farmer or embellished what she had understood of her situation in order to make a better story. Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) was a pioneering American documentary photographer and photojournalist best known for her iconic images of the Great Depression and her work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Born Dorothea Nutzhorn in Hoboken, New Jersey, she suffered from polio as a child and was abandoned by her father at age 12, events that shaped her empathetic approach to documenting human struggle. After establishing a successful portrait studio in San Francisco, Lange shifted her focus to social documentary photography in the early 1930s, capturing the plight of unemployed workers and migrant farmers. Her most famous photograph, Migrant Mother (1936), became a defining symbol of the era, highlighting the harsh realities faced by displaced families during the economic crisis. During World War II, Lange documented the forced internment of Japanese Americans for the government, though many of these images were censored at the time. She later joined the staff of LIFE magazine in 1954 and continued traveling as a freelance photographer until her death in 1965, leaving a legacy that humanized the consequences of major historical events.

Estimate:£5.14

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