Artist Analysis: Dorothea Lange

The artist known as Dorothea Lange is renowned as one of the most influential photographers of the Great Depression. This unit of study is focused on the in-depth history of Lange, her art collection as a whole, her aesthetic appeal to the public, and how to apply her work to a production lesson for 4th or 5th grade.

Dorothea Lange was born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn in Hoboken, New Jersey on May 25, 1895 to Henry Nutzhorn and Joanna Lange. In 1901 Martin, Dorothea’s brother, was born to the family. Only a year later, at the age of seven Dorothea contracted Polio, which left her with a weakened right leg and permanent limp. This was a point of contention between her and her mother in her early life. Her mother was concerned that her disfigurement

and limp would cause Dorothea to be unmarriageable. Lange didn’t look at her disability that way, in fact she said, “I think it was perhaps the most important thing that happened to me. [It] formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me, and humiliated me. All those thing at once. I’ve never gotten over it and I am aware of the force and power of it.” This is a powerful self-reflection since during that time in the country having a disability was near impossible to work through. Dorothea was aware that her parents were ashamed of her and many think that it contributed to the next big event in her life. At the age of twelve Dorothea’s father left, leaving her mother to care for the kids on her own. This act of her father eventually prompted her to drop his last name, and adopted the use of her mother’s maiden name. In all of Dorothea’s interviews she very rarely spoke about her father. His abandonment of his family was obviously a deep blow to Dorothea that had a lasting effect. Though Lange didn’t consider herself to be very academic, both of her parents were very supportive of her education and exposed her to many artistic and creative experiences growing up. This was a significant contributing factor to her becoming an artist. Lange continued her education and pursued a degree in photography, the art/practice of taking and developing photographs, at Columbia University. Unfortunately, despite her earlier support of artistic exposure, Dorothea’s mother was not supportive of her daughter’s choice in profession. She thought that Dorothea should get a quiet respectable job that would provide a stable income. Thankfully as a small girl her maternal grandmother said she saw the creative spark in Dorothea, and encouraged Lange to follow her dreams of becoming an artist. Once graduated from college Lange took an apprenticeship working with a commercial portrait photographer named Arnold Genthe.
In 1918 Lange hatched a plan with her friend “Fronsie” Florence Ahlstrom to travel the world.

They pooled their money and took off for their trip, however, on their stop in San Francisco the duo was hit with tragedy. The girls were out to lunch and when they went to pay realized that their purse was open and their money gone. With no money between the two they quickly found jobs to support themselves. Dorothea looked up jobs in photofinishing and was able to work in a small shop. To get access to a dark room she joined a camera club and it was through that club that she found her big break into her own photography business. She met a man by the name of Sidney Franklin, who was looking for new investments and decided he would set Dorothea up with her own portrait studio. Something that was practically unheard of in 1919. By luck a wealthy woman saw Dorothea’s work and decided to commission her to do portraits of her family. Soon Dorothea had many wealthy clients, enough to keep her bust throughout the entire year. For those first years Lange did almost no personal photography, due to how busy her portrait business was. When looking at this early work you can see the painstaking time that went into each photograph. Lange was working with 8x10 plates which unlike the 35mm cameras she had to set up each plate individually and position her subjects’ just right. While in her studio one day Lange heard loud footsteps overhead and soon met artist Maynard Dixon, a famous painter who

was successful in commercial work. In six short months she was married to Dixon who was several years her senior, but was the person to first introduce Dorothea to the beauty of the Southwest United States. This would later influence a lot of her photography.
In 1929 the stock market crashed setting off the Great Depression and Lange watched how the decline in the economy affected her surroundings.

One day she saw an unemployed man outside her studio window and stated she felt compelled to follow and take photos. She started to walk around town with her big, heavy Graflex Super D camera, and took photographs of the hardships she saw. She is well known for giving a clear image of just what the average working person was going through during that time. Her images ranged from the dockworkers striking to men standing in line at a soup kitchen. The latter leading to her photograph White Angel Breadline, which became her first nationally recognized photograph, and lead to her being commissioned by FDR’s Farm Security Administration. While working with FSA in 1935 Lange traveled throughout the country photographing the conditions migrant workers were being forced to live in. It was during this project that Dorothea met Paul Taylor, an economist that was also commissioned by FSA to write down what he sees while Lange documents with photos. It’s said there was an instant connection between Paul and Dorothea who worked closely for many months, and lead to both of them divorcing their spouses and starting a relationship between themselves; the two were married by the years end. They traveled together for four years documenting the troubles of the central and lower United States. Dorothea felt it was important to make sure that word was

getting out to the public about what was happening to their fellow Americans. Lange’s FSA work along with her earlier Great Depression work is what made Lange known in the art community. Her most well-known piece was during the time she worked traveling the country for the FSA. The image is titled “Migrant Mother” taken in 1936 and centers around a harrowing image of a woman and two of her children. It’s clear in the image that the woman has a hard life. She has distinct stress and worry lines, and you can see their clothes are ragged and dirty. The look in her eyes is hauntingly apparent; she looks worried and defeated. This photo along with some of the others Lange took at that migrant camp helped to get the national government to send aid to these camps, and provide food to the people. According to sources Lange stated she never asked the woman her name just her age, 32, and how many children she had, 7. The story that is often told with this piece is that because of an early frost there was no work. So she and her family had been living off the frozen food in the fields, and had to sell the tires off their car for food. There is some controversy of the validity of this statement. The woman in the picture, Florence Owens, stated she never said anything about selling tires or the like, but that she didn’t feel Lange knowingly lied, just that maybe she had mixed up her story with another subject.
Dorothea Lange was the first woman to ever receive the Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant awarded for excellence in photography. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, therein pulling the United States into WWII, Lange gave up the distinguished award in order to document the relocation and internment of Japanese American’s. Because of her well known work for the FSA the Army commissioned Lange to take the photographs to try and prove that things were being handled respectfully, and without cruelty. Dorothea had her own idea about the project. She was passionately against the relocation project and felt it was her responsibility to make sure the injustice was documented. For three months she followed families that had to pack up all their belongings, and close their businesses to move to these “relocation centers”. Lange was only given access to one of the internment camps to photograph the inside. The War Relocation Authority followed Lange around the whole time and tried to restrict how she took her photographs. The best example of this is a photo Lange took where the people of the camp were working in the lattice sheds and due to the location of the sun and shadows made it appear as those the relocated were behind bars. That photo and the negatives were immediately confiscated. The WRA was unhappy with the photos that were produced because they felt the images shined a negative light on the army. This caused the WRA to impound the more than 8,000 images and they were locked away for more than 50 years. According to Richard and Maise Conrat of the 8,000 images only about 760 of Lange’s photos survived. Lange stated that her work with the WRA was her most intense experience as a photographer, causing her to take a break from most photography for the next three years. Many attribute the stress of working on that project to the development of stomach ulcers that would lead to health issues later in life.
In the 1950’s she worked with Edward Steichen on an exhibit called “the Family of Man” that Steichen hoped would “bring a visual commonality of human experience”. Lange liked traveled to other countries with her husband, especially those in South Asia, the Middle East, and South America to document the lives of the people that live there. She also took up a faculty position in the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts. She helped co-found a photographic magazine “Aperture” that she commonly used to display her own work, as well as those of artists she felt had a worthy cause. This magazine still puts out new issues today.
For most of the last twenty years of Lange’s life she suffered from health issues. Post-polio disease, and bleeding ulcers made her life of travel extremely difficult. Not knowing how much longer she would be around Lange was offered a chance to have a career retrospective exhibit at Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She worked tirelessly for two years to complete the exhibit. Lange is notorious for being her own worst critic and therefore she took a long time to look over each individual image to make sure it will fit with the exhibit. Unfortunately, Dorothea Lange passed away due to esophageal cancer on October 11, 1965 at the age of 70, just shortly before the opening of the exhibit and a trip her husband had planned for them to go to New York.
Lange may be gone, but she left behind a collection of art that will help educate younger generations of the hardships people went through to get to where we are today, and prove a perfect canvas for Feldman’s Model for Art Critism. Since Lange’s images are all in black and white. they are black and white, allows for viewers to focus in on the details rather than getting wrapped up in bright colors. The textures and shadows help to convey emotions and allow for an aesthetic experience to be had.