A couple of weeks ago I needed to go up to New York on business, so I decided while I was there I would make the most of it by visiting the Dorothea Lange exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. What was most interesting about the show was having the words that accompanied her photographs in newspapers, magazines, government reports, books and exhibitions presented alongside the black and white silver gelatin images themselves.

All the iconic pictures we know were present, including those capturing the pain and despair of Great Depression – White Angel, Breadline, San Francisco; Migrant Mother; and Woman of the High Plains, Texas Panhandle.  There were also environmental portraits, candid photographs, photographs of farmhouses and barns, urban architecture, roadside signs, and the lonely road and those traveling it. The Road West, New Mexico particularly struck me.

While many of the images and accompanying words were from her time photographing for US government Farm Security Administration, there was more. Other work funded by the government not only captured the impact of WWII on average Americans, but interestingly also depicted racism towards Japanese Americans during the war. This work is particularly relevant in today’s environment.  There also was great work from the famous 1955 Family of Man exhibit, other Fifties work done for magazines including important photographs depicting the state of Black life in America, some surprising intimate landscapes also done in the Fifties, family photographs made in the 1960s.

Although my guess is that Lange is mainly known for her Depression era work, she could really do it all and clearly did not want to limit herself to a particular genre. We can all certainly take a page from her wonderful body of work and not limit ourselves to the all the creative photographic opportunities that exist for us if we are only open to them.

Truly a wonderful show and highly recommended!  The exhibit runs through May 9^th, 2020.