art2art is proud to present a focused exhibition of original lifetime prints by the legendary documentary photographer Dorothea Lange. Highlighting this show are oversized exhibition prints of her original portraits from the Great Depression, including White Angel Breadline, Migratory Farm Worker, and, most famously, Migrant Mother – an emblematic picture that came to personify pride and resilience in the face of abject poverty in 1930s America.

Lange herself had known adversity early in life. At age 7 she was stricken with polio, which left her with a lifetime limp. And at age 12 her father disappeared from the scene, leaving an impoverished household behind. Every day she would ride the ferry with her mother from Hoboken to lower Manhattan, to a roiling working-class neighborhood teeming with immigrants. During that period Lange talked her way into photo courses with a range of teachers as diverse as Arnold Genthe and Clarence White

In 1918 she moved to San Francisco where she befriended the photographers Ansel Adams and Imogen Cunningham, and, through them, the celebrated Western painter Maynard Dixon, who became her first husband. She soon opened a thriving portrait studio that catered to San Francisco’s professional class and monied elite. But with the crash of 1929 she found her true calling, as a nomadic chronicler of the many faces of America, old and young, urban and rural, native-born and immigrant, as they dealt with unprecedented hardship, sometimes with resilience, often with despondence. Her immortal portraits seared these faces of the Depression era into America’s consciousness.

This is an expanded version of the exhibition with 55 photographs, in which Lange’s work is supplemented by that of other notable social documentarians of the era, including Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Wright Morris, Mike Disfarmer, and others. Exhibit toured by art2art Circulating Exhibits.

This exhibit also displays western Kansas residents’ Depression Era photographs, household items and family heirlooms. These artifacts and the exhibit images are a reminder of how much the Great Depression and Dust Bowl are Kansas stories.

We are expecting many visitors for this exhibit. Please schedule a tour in advance for groups of 5 or more by calling the Stauth Memorial Museum at (620) 846-2527 or by emailing stauthedu@yahoo.com. Please follow all CDC guidelines to protect the museum’s employees and other visitors.