Dorothea Lange

born Hoboken, New Jersey, 1895; died San Francisco, California, 1965

BiographyCelebrated photographer of the 1930s, Dorothea Lange’s lasting fame grew from the iconic Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, but her legacy goes beyond her most recognizable Depression-era portrait. Lange grew up on the east coast and studied photography in New York before relocating to San Francisco, California where she ran a portrait studio prior to working for government agencies during the 1930s and 1940s. She traveled extensively across the United States documenting major historical events including migrant workers and Japanese internment camps. Lange’s photographs of internment camps were censored and remained mostly unpublished until they were released in Impounded (W.W. Norton, 2006). Later she returned to California where she continued her career and taught at California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute). The largest repositories of her photographic archives are held by the Oakland Museum of California and the Library of Congress, although individual works are held by most major museums.

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