Dorothea Lange
Woman of the High Plains, Texas Panhandle

ArtistAmerican, 1895–1965
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Woman of the High Plains, Texas Panhandle
Date1938, printed 1965
Place depictedTexas, United States
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 30 × 24 in. (76.2 × 61 cm)
Sheet: 36 1/2 × 31 3/8 in. (92.7 × 79.7 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund
Object number2021.285
Not on view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description



Dorothea
Lange’s moving portrait of Nettie Featherston, slender and destitute against
the backdrop of the Texas high plains, is emblematic of the era’s depleted
land, bodies, and spirits. Nettie’s solitary despair, like the uncaring
landscape that surrounds her, is inescapable. From 1935 to 1939, Lange worked
for the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration, tasked with recording
the lives of Americans hit hardest by the double punch of the Great Depression
and the Dust Bowl. Printed under Lange’s supervision shortly before her death
in 1965, this monumentally sized print was produced for her solo exhibition at
New York’s Museum of Modern Art.








ProvenanceEx-collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; [Sotheby’s New York, April 2, 2020, Lot 38]; [Howard Greenberg, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2021.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in pencil, verso, upper right: No 90 [inside cropping lines]
Inscribed in pencil, verso, lower left: No 90 [underlined] [inside cropping lines]
[cropping lines on all corners]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Dorothea Lange
1935, printed 1970s
Gelatin silver print
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First Born (Gregor)
Dorothea Lange
February 1952
Gelatin silver print
2000.74
cropped recto of sheet
Dorothea Lange
July, 1937
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Ma Burnham from Conway, Arkansas
Dorothea Lange
1938
Gelatin silver print
78.76