Picturepics

“About Life: The Photographs of Dorothea
Lange” J. Paul Getty Museum Through Feb. 9, 2003 4
Paws

Dorothea Lange has been well-recognized for her ability to
capture people on film with realism and gripping ethos. This
exhibit on display at the Getty gives people an opportunity to
experience the deep-felt emotions of her photographs.

The exhibit, focusing mainly on the Great Depression, is divided
into four sections. Lange’s life-long career is covered, with
approximately 80 of her photographs.

The area “Lange and Dixon in the Southwest,” spans
1923-1931, and is unique because it offers visitors a look into the
personal life of Lange as it features intimate pictures of her
family.

One such photograph titled “Maynard Dixon and His First
Son, Daniel” is a close-up of her first husband holding their
newborn son naked in his arms. Her husband appears to be
whispering, or maybe even singing, into the sleeping baby’s
ear while clutching him protectively and gently. The visual
elements work together to produce a nurturing and comforting
tone.

Another section, “The Great Depression and Wartime
America,” features photographs Lange took for the federal
government’s Farm Security Administration, War Relocation
Authority, and Office of War Information between 1935 and 1945.
These somber black and white images feature displaced Dust Bowl
migrant farmers who had already arrived or were on their way to
California.

The subject matter is intensified by Lange’s sharp
contrast of the black and white colors, which brings the subjects
to life.

Lange’s most noteworthy photograph, “Human Erosion
in California/Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California” can be
found in this section and truly conveys the sense of sorrow and
hardship migrant farmers faced. The picture is a close-up of a
mother surrounded by her two children with their heads on her
shoulders. The permanent frown lines in her forehead only hint at
the stress and worry that must have consumed her life.

Though Lange took these photos to document conditions in
California for the government, their artistic quality is
unmistakable. It is clear that Lange was no amateur as her photos
truly bring out the emotions of these families who were hungry,
homeless and had nowhere to turn.

– Barbara McGuire

“The Grapes of Wrath: Horace Bristol’s
California Photographs,” J. Paul Getty Museum Through Feb. 9,
2003 3 Paws

Horace Bristol’s work basically picks up where
Lange’s Dust Bowl photographs left off. Also containing
photographs of Dust Bowl migrants, Bristol’s exhibit does not
showcase a great number of images, but is nonetheless moving.

Bristol took these photographs in the winter of 1937-38 while
traveling with writer John Steinbeck (“The Grapes of
Wrath”). Both were hoping to document what they saw through
different media.

A quote from “The Grapes of Wrath” adorns one of the
walls and helps put words to the tragedy evident in the
photographs:

“Three hundred thousand in California and more coming. And
the roads full of frantic people running like ants to pull, to
push, to lift, and to work. For every manload to lift, five pairs
of arms extended to lift it, for every stomachful of food
available, five mouths opened.”

Whereas Lange’s photos focus closely on the human
subjects, Bristol’s photos pan out more and show the
environment and camps these farmers were living in. Viewers see
farmers hard at work building camps, as well as camps flooded from
when the rains came.

One especially touching photo which has been compared to
Lange’s “Migrant Mother” is likewise titled
“Nursing Mother in Camp,” and features a young mother
breast-feeding an infant. Like in many of his other photos, it
seems as if Bristol perfectly captured the expressions and emotions
of that moment in history.

Bristol’s photographs in this exhibit have a completely
natural air about them, laying down the truths of the situation as
he found them, with absolutely no pretense or fabrication.

-Barbara McGuire