Dorothea Lange 1895-1965

mounted, signed by the photographer in pencil on the mount, her '1163 Euclid Avenue, Berkeley, California, Telephone Landscape 4-3880' studio stamp on the reverse, matted, 1938

Gift of the photographer to Pirkle Jones, late 1950s

Other prints of this image:

John Szarkowski, Dorothea Lange (The Museum of Modern Art, 1966, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 23

Robert Coles and Therese Heyman, Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime (Aperture, 1982), p. 55

Keith F. Davis and Kelle A. Botkin, The Photographs of Dorothea Lange (Kansas City, 1995), p. 52

Pierre Borhan, Dorothea Lange: The Heart and Mind of a Photographer (Boston, 2002), p. 148

John Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye (The Museum of Modern Art, 1966), p. 64

Therese Mulligan and David Wooters, eds., Photography from 1839 to Today, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY (Köln, 2000), p. 600

Although made during the years in which she was employed by the Farm Security Administration, this image was likely made as part of the personal project that Dorothea Lange began at the end of 1938 on a series of photographs documenting life in California towns and cities.

This photograph is from the collection of photographer Pirkle Jones, who, with his wife Ruth-Marion Baruch, met Dorothea Lange in the late 1940s.  They were introduced by Homer Page, who taught the couple when they were photography students at the California School of Fine Arts.  In 1956 Lange invited Jones to collaborate on what became a year-long project for Life magazine, documenting the destruction and flooding of the small farming town of Monticello, California, in the Berryessa Valley.  Although not published until 1960 in Aperture, the experience with Lange had a profound artistic and political effect on Jones, and he considered it one of the most meaningful projects of his career.  He and Ruth-Marion turned to Lange for advice on Walnut Grove: Portrait of a Town, the 1961 essay on which they collaborated.

Jones says of Lange's influence and friendship,

'When I was working with Dorothea Lange on our project "Death of A Valley"  in 1956, I was deeply impressed by her commitment to photography, especially her interest in photographing people and social conditions.  Dorothea Lange did not refer to her photography as "art" although I strongly think otherwise.  Dorothea Lange had the rare gift of photographing people, appearing invisible when she worked. 

'Dorothea Lange's photographs of people and their environment are her legacy, just as meaningful today as when they were made.  She was an inspiration to work with, a close friend and a superb teacher. She insisted that a photograph had a content of information and meaning.'