Dorothea Lange. Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California. 1936

Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California 1936

  • Not on view

Dorothea Lange took this photograph on assignment for the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) program, formed during the Great Depression to provide aid to impoverished farmers. FSA photographers documented the conditions that Americans faced throughout the course of the Great Depression, a period of economic crisis. Lange’s photograph suggests the impact of these harsh conditions on a 32-year-old mother of seven. She took a number of pictures of the mother with her children and chose this image as the most effective. Her keen sense of composition and attentiveness to the power of historical images of the Madonna and Child have helped this photograph transcend its original documentary function and become an iconic work of art

Additional text from Seeing Through Photographs online course, Coursera, 2016
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
11 1/8 x 8 9/16" (28.3 x 21.8 cm)
Credit
Purchase
Object number
331.1995
Department
Photography

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