News Hour with Jim Lehrer: Dorothea Lange Biography
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936
Author Linda Gordon has written a new biography of the life and work of Dorothea Lange, entitled Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits. PBS correspondent Jeffrey Brown discussed the biography with Gordon during the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on November 23.
Watch as Gordon describes the ways in which Lange translates her skills in San Francisco portraiture to her photographic vision for the Farm Security Administration. Gordon suggests it was Lange??s idea to include people in her images for the FSA (as her task was to photograph the landscape) and describes the compositional strategies of images like the iconic Migrant Mother.
A Winter??s Provender, 1953
Gordon quotes Lange as having said: ??A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.? Lange??s FSA images evidence her ability to see and depict a group of people and a crucial time in the country??s history. With images as beautiful and heartfelt as these, it is clear that Lange??s vision enabled her to capture emotion and complexity that existed well beyond the parameters of her camera.
Watch a slide show from the interview.
See more Lange??s photographs at the MoCP collection site.