Dorothea Lange, American 1895-1965
Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1895 and studied photography with Clarence White at Columbia University. She moved to San Francisco in 1918 where she opened up a portrait studio. In the 1930's Dorothea Lange photographed the people caught in midst of the Great Depression. Her work is an intense vision of ordinary people in what are the physical and social circumstances of their lives. Lange documented the breakdown of traditional rural life as farm dwellers became impoverished by a long-standing agricultural depression, and replaced by machines in the field. Her work became a classic work of dislocation and exploitation. Lange wanted her photographs to say something to the viewer and cause the viewer to come back and look again and again. Her photographs resulted in the state of California building camps for the migrant workers. Lange's innate sympathy and direct vision enabled her to create photographs that are both sensitive and powerful. In 1941 she resigned from a Guggenheim Fellowship in order to document the Japanese internment camps. Lange died in San Francisco in
1965.
Bibliography:
Pierre Borhan, Dorothea Lange: The Heart and Mind of a Photographer, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002.
Robert Coles, Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime, New York: Aperture, 1982.
Keith F. Davis, The Photographs of Dorothea Lange, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995.
Mark Durden, Dorothea Lange 55, New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2001.
Mark Durden, Dorothea Lange, New York: Phaidon Press, 2001, 2006.
Geroge P. Elliot, Dorothea Lange, New York: New York Graphic Society, 1966.
Linda Gordon, Gary Y. Okihiro, Impounded; Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
Therese Thau Heyman, Celebrating a Collection: The Work of Dorothea Lange, Oakland, CA: The Oakland Museum, 1978.
Therese Thau Heyman, Sandra S. Philips, John Szarkowski, Dorothea Lange: American Photographs, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994.
Dorothea Lange, Beaumont Newhall, Dorothea Lange Looks at the American Country Woman, Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1967.
Dorothea Lange, Paul S. Taylor, Dorothea Lange: Farm Security Administration Photographs: 1935-1939, Volume 1, Glencoe, IL: Text-Fiche Press, 1980.
Howard M. Levin, Katherine Northrup, Dorothea Lange: Farm Security Administration Photographs, 1935-1939, Volume 2, Glencoe, Il: Text-Fiche Press, 1980.
Henry Mayer, Naomi Rosenblum, Sally Stein, Sam Stourdze, Dorothea Lange: The Human Face, New York: NBC Editions, 1998.
Milton Meltzer, Dorothea Lange: A Photographer s Life, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1978.
Karin Becker Ohrn, Dorothea Lange and the Documentary Tradition, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 1980.
Elizabeth Partridge, Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1994.
Elizabeth Partridge, Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange, New York: Viking Press, 1998.
Karen Tsujimoto, Dorothea Lange: Archive of an Artist, Oakland: Oakland Museum of California, 1995.
Charles Wollenberg, Photographing the Second Gold Rush: Dorothea Lange and the Bay Area at War, 1941-1945, Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1995.
