Dorothea Lange
Plantation Owner, near Clarksdale, Mississippi

ArtistAmerican, 1895–1965
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Plantation Owner, near Clarksdale, Mississippi
  • Plantation overseer. Mississippi Delta, near Clarksdale, Mississippi
DateJune 1936, printed 1976
Place depictedMississippi, United States
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 10 3/8 × 13 5/16 in. (26.4 × 33.8 cm)
Sheet: 11 × 13 15/16 in. (27.9 × 35.4 cm)
Credit LineThe Target Collection of American Photography, museum purchase funded by Target Stores
Object number76.282
Not on view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

Dorothea Lange said of the
photographic lens: “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see
without a camera.” Her documentary style achieved its fullest expression during
the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Hired by the Farm Security
Administration to document the plight of uprooted farm workers in America,
Lange’s photographs were hailed as persuasive evidence of the urgent need for
government programs to assist disadvantaged Americans.




ProvenanceLibrary of Congress, Washington, DC; purchased by MFAH, 1976.
Exhibition History"The 150th Anniversary of the Invention of Photography: Prague 1989," Manes Center of the Union of Czechoslovak Creative Artists, Progue, c/o U.S.I.A., Washington, D.C., August 1–September 30, 1989.

"Target Collection of American Photography: A Century in Pictures," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, December 3–February 25, 2007; Austin Museum of Art, May 19–August 12, 2007; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, June 5–August 24, 2008.

"Introducing America to Americans: Depression-era Photographs from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Spring, Texas, June 10–September 9, 2017.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
verso top right in pencil reading vertically "47488¦39[underlined] / 9599"
verso center right a stamp reading vertically: Reproduced from the collection of the Library of Congress

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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