Dorothea Lange: Seeing People

Dorothea Lange's iconic photographs explore portraiture, identity, and inequality, expanding our understanding of portraiture and documentary practice. Her sensitive portraits of marginalized people addressed social problems, demonstrating compassion and addressing identity and social, economic, and racial inequalities.

Format: Hardback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 03 October 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press

Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) was a photographer who aimed to create images that were both "important and useful." Her decades-long exploration of how photography could express people's core values and sense of self helped to broaden our understanding of portraiture and the meaning of documentary practice.

Lange's sensitive portraits, which depicted the common humanity of often marginalized individuals, played a crucial role in shaping public perceptions of significant social issues during the 20th century. Her early portraits of Indigenous people in Arizona and New Mexico from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as her representations of striking workers, migrant farmers, rural African Americans, Japanese Americans in internment camps, and the people she encountered during her travels in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, were guided by compassion.

In this book, the authors examine Lange's roots in studio portraiture and explore how her influential and widely seen photographs addressed issues of identity as well as social, economic, and racial inequalities. These topics remain as relevant for our times as they were for hers.

Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the exhibition schedule for this book is as follows:

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (November 5, 2023–March 31, 2024)

Dimension: 267 x 235 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300272000