Dorothea Lange
Seeing People
Published on 24. October 2023
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-0-300-27200-0 (ISBN)
Description
An expansive look at portraiture, identity, and inequality as seen in Dorothea Lange's iconic photographs
Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) aimed to make pictures that were, in her words, "important and useful." Her decades-long investigation of how photography could articulate people's core values and sense of self helped to expand our current understanding of portraiture and the meaning of documentary practice.
Lange's sensitive portraits showing the common humanity of often marginalized people were pivotal to public understanding of vast social problems in the twentieth century. Compassion guided Lange's early portraits of Indigenous people in Arizona and New Mexico from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as her depictions of striking workers, migrant farmers, rural African Americans, Japanese Americans in internment camps, and the people she met while traveling in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Drawing on new research, the authors look at Lange's roots in studio portraiture and demonstrate how her influential and widely seen photographs addressed issues of identity as well as social, economic, and racial inequalities-topics that remain as relevant for our times as they were for hers.
Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington
Exhibition Schedule:
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
(November 5, 2023-March 31, 2024)
Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) aimed to make pictures that were, in her words, "important and useful." Her decades-long investigation of how photography could articulate people's core values and sense of self helped to expand our current understanding of portraiture and the meaning of documentary practice.
Lange's sensitive portraits showing the common humanity of often marginalized people were pivotal to public understanding of vast social problems in the twentieth century. Compassion guided Lange's early portraits of Indigenous people in Arizona and New Mexico from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as her depictions of striking workers, migrant farmers, rural African Americans, Japanese Americans in internment camps, and the people she met while traveling in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Drawing on new research, the authors look at Lange's roots in studio portraiture and demonstrate how her influential and widely seen photographs addressed issues of identity as well as social, economic, and racial inequalities-topics that remain as relevant for our times as they were for hers.
Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington
Exhibition Schedule:
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
(November 5, 2023-March 31, 2024)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
60 tritone + 40 b-w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 274 mm
Width: 240 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
1378 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-27200-0 (9780300272000)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Philip Brookman is consulting curator, Sarah Greenough is senior curator and head of the department of photographs, and Andrea Nelson is associate curator, all at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Laura Wexler is the Charles H. Farnam Professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University.