Plantation Overseer and his Field Hands, Mississippi Delta

Dorothea LangeWW-1936-013704

1936·Gelatin silver print·Image: 18.7 × 24.1 cm (7 3/8 × 9 1/2 in.)

<p>Dorothea Lange produced indelible images of the Great Depression while working for US government agencies in the 1930s. In 1936 she made her first trip to the American South with her husband, economics professor Paul Taylor (seen at the very left side of the photograph), who interviewed locals and took notes while she photographed. Lange found the often-racist social order of the South intact despite the upheavals of the Depression. She made that power structure clear in this frequently reproduced image, in which a heavyset plantation owner stakes claim to his car and his employees at once, straddling the bumper as he looms before people who he seems to regard as his possessions.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1936
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 18.7 × 24.1 cm (7 3/8 × 9 1/2 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Dorothea Lange

Artist

Dorothea Lange

Mixed Media

Dorothea Lange was an American photographer whose documentary practice defined the visual language of social reportage in the twentieth century. Working primarily in black-and-white photography, she created unflinching portraits of rural poverty, labor, and displacement, most notably during the Great Depression as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration. Her formal precision, psychological intensity, and ethical commitment to the dignity of her subjects established a foundational model for socially engaged photography. Her work remains central to the American photographic canon.

Hoboken, NJ, USA

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