Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing

Fascinating exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery looking at the life and work of the photographer Dorothea Lange.

 
Lange is best known for her iconic US Depression era photograph “Migrant Mother” and there was a section of the show devoted to the picture and how it had been used over the years. I was particularly interested in how in later prints Lange had edited out the mothers’ thumb so you can date a print as pre and post thumb. It is a moving image and it was lovely to see the other pictures that were taken in the same session.
 
The show did say however that that image had overshadowed the rest of Lange’s career. She wasn’t one image but was one of the founders of documentary photography. She opened a studio in San Francisco in 1919 specialising in rather wistful portraits but after the Stock Market crash San Francisco filled with migrants and she started going onto the street to photograph them. This led to her working on reports with the social scientist Paul Schuster Taylor who she married in 1935 and they travelled the country recording the effect of the depression on the population.
 
There was a lovely video of Lange in later life talking about her career. Post World War 2 she seems to have struggled to find a subject, almost like she found it hard to photograph the good times. She turned to following the destruction of the town of Monticello to build a damn and produced a touching series of a community saying goodbye to their town and moving out.  
 
My favourite image was “White Angel Bread Line” from 1933 and showed one mad turning away from the crown in a bread queue. I felt it represented the individual within a mass movement. I also loved one of a young woman on a bus which just showed her legs in heavily darned stockings and lovely T-bar shoes.
 
Closed on 2 September 2018
 
Reviews
Guardian
Telegraph

Evening Standard

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thomas Becket: Murder and Making of a Saint

Image
Stunning exhibition at the British Museum on the life and afterlife of Thomas Becket. I studied Becket both at A Level and at university so I was really looking forward to this show and it did not disappoint. From walking in to see an old friend, the early Limoges casket showing the murder from the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was gripped. The show told the story well using fantastic objects and led you through his life, the murder, the political aftermath, his sainthood and miracles, and how Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site. It is hard to pick out the best objects as so many were wonderful. I loved that they had early copies of some of the five eyewitness accounts of the murder which made you fell you were almost touching the event. I liked the manuscript on his time in exile which was almost like a comic strip. How wonderful to get a 13th century font from Sweden which shows how far and how quickly the news that Henry II had integrated the murder spread. I think my...
Read more

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition 2019

Image
Delightful exhibition at Clarendon Fine Art showing pictures from the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year TV series. I had loved the series which had set nine artists, both professional and amateur, to paint one of three celebrities. It then had a semi-final and final with them all looking at one sitter and in the final they also took on a commission. I loved the way you watched a picture build and how some were then made or spoiled by one stroke of paint.   Finding these pictures I knew so well in the flesh was therefore fascinating. None of them disappointed. My favourite artist from the final, Tom Mead, works looked just as good in real life if not better as you could see the detail. The show included his impressive self-portrait which he submitted to enter the competition, a wonderful fragmented picture of his reflection in a mirror giving a sense of movement. I loved that it included a large version of him and a miniature. His commission for the final of Jazzie B...
Read more

The Renaissance Nude

Image
Beautiful exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the nude in Renaissance art. The show was gently themed but mainly let the pictures speak for themselves. It began by looking at the subjects, both religious and secular, which include nude figures then examined techniques and models used in these works, finishing by looking at more personal pictures. This is a period I’ve studied a lot so there were a lot of old friends and it was quite fun predicting what might appear. There were a few surprises too such as the rather surprising drawing of the Ecstatic Christ. I liked the fact the show included lots of different art forms not just paintings including sculpture, etchings, drawings and illuminated manuscripts. There were some fascinating hangs to draw comparisons particularly two sets of pictures by Giovanni Bellini and Hand Memling from almost exactly the same date. These were shown back to back in a display cabinet down the middle of one room. My favourite work was ...
Read more