On view in the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee from Friday, March 15 through May 27, 2019, “Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing” is an exhibition that examines a broad range of the artist’s work through the lens of social and political activism. Showing will be approximately 130 vintage and modern photographs and personal memorabilia, including a handwritten letter from the author John Steinbeck as well as portions of a documentary produced by one of Lange’s granddaughters.
In addition to presenting Lange’s iconic photographs from the Great Depression, the exhibition will feature works from her early years as a studio portraitist in San Francisco, along with images of the grim conditions of incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II, naval shipyard workers of different sexes and races contributing to the patriotic cause, and inequity in our judicial system in the 1950s.
Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) is recognized as one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century and her insightful and compassionate work has exerted a profound influence on the development of modern documentary photography. With hardship and human suffering as a consistent theme throughout her career, Lange created arresting portraits with the aim of sparking reform.
Born in 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey, Lange knew from a young age that she wanted to be a photographer. In San Francisco, she began work in a photography shop and quickly became enmeshed within the city’s artistic community.
In 1919, she opened what would become a successful portrait studio. Lange shifted her attention from capturing the city’s elite to the impoverished unemployed figures she saw on the streets through her studio window as the devastating effects of the economic depression spread throughout the country.
“Lange applied her skill as a portraitist to connect with her subjects throughout her career,” says Frist Art Museum curator Katie Delmez. “Her empathy for the ‘walking wounded,’ which she attributed to her own experience of living with a physical disability, led her to create photographs meant to raise awareness of suffering and injustices.”
In addition to recording scenes of urban poverty, Lange documented the plight of American refugees who had left the Midwest because of drought and dust storms. The 1936 photograph “Migrant Mother” who as a mother and three children in a pea-pickers’ camp in Nipomo, California, has become an emblem of the hardship endured by many during the American Great Depression.
The exhibition offers a comprehensive examination of a woman who is widely recognized as one of the most important documentary photographers of the twentieth century. “Although Lange’s photographs were taken over half a century ago, many of the issues they address remain relevant today,” says Delmez. “Poverty, environmental degradation, the treatment of immigrants, and racism, as well as the role of images in shaping public opinion and political positions, are topics very much on our minds in today’s turbulent climate.”
For additional information, contact: Buddy Kite: 615.744.3351, bkite@fristartmuseum.org or Ellen Jones Pryor: 615.243.1311, epryor@fristartmuseum.org.