Dorothea Lange - Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation New York Thursday, April 4, 2024 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Born in Hoboken in 1895, Dorothea Lange learned to photograph as a young woman before her departure for the west coast in 1918. Talented and ambitious, Lange opened a portrait studio that catered to San Francisco’s upper crust. After witnessing first-hand the social upheaval caused by the Depression, she took to the streets with her camera, taking images of labor demonstrations, the newly unemployed, and men, women, and children who were without home or income – images that would set the trajectory for the rest of her career. During the Depression she traveled the country under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration, documenting the poverty endured by Americans and creating some of the most culturally relevant images of the 20th century. Lange’s photographs illustrated the human toll of the Depression and are in large part responsible for our historical understanding of this period in American history. 

    • Exhibited

      American Scene Photography: Martin Z. Margulies Collection, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, 30 October 2014 – 22 March 2015
      House to House: Women, Politics and Place, Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, 19 September 2020 – 10 January 2021
      The Bitter Years: Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Collection, The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Miami, 19 October 2022 – 29 April 2023; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, 8 September 2023 – 14 January 2024

    • Literature

      San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Dorothea Lange: American Photographs, pl. 83
      Partridge, Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life, p. 83
      Lange, An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion, cover,
      Aperture, Dorothea Lange, Photographs of a Lifetime, p. 80 (variants)
      Aperture, Dorothea Lange, p. 45.

117

Wife of Migratory Laborer with Three Children, Near Childress, Texas, Nettie Featherston

1938
Gelatin silver print, printed later.
9 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. (24.8 x 19.7 cm)
Credit and 'F. S. A. Photograph' stamps on the verso.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

This lot is still available to purchase. Enter an offer amount below and a specialist will follow up with you. Standard buyer's premium will be added to your offer.

Contact Specialist

Caroline Deck
Senior Specialist, Photographs
cdeck@phillips.com

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation

New York Auction 4 April 2024