Dorothea Lange - Photographs New York Wednesday, October 11, 2023 | Phillips

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  • In the early 1930s Dorothea Lange operated her own portrait studio in San Francisco catering to the city’s wealthier residents. As economic conditions worsened around her, and she saw growing numbers of newly unemployed people, she took to the street, camera in hand, to explore the situation. She made a series of photographs at demonstrations during this time that capture an intensity born of the dire seriousness of the growing Depression. It is images such as this one, of workers during the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike, that marked the beginning of a photographic career characterized by empathy and a need to document the issues of her day.

     

    • Provenance

      Dixon-Lange Family Collection, San Francisco
      Edwynn Houk Gallery, Chicago, 1989

    • Literature

      Edwynn Houk Gallery, Dorothea Lange: Eloquent Witness, cover
      Therese Heyman, John Szarkowski, and Sandra Phillips, Dorothea Lange: American Photographs, pl. 9
      Keith Davis, The Photographs of Dorothea Lange, p. 25

Photographs from a Prominent New York Collection

26

San Francisco Waterfront Strike

1934
Gelatin silver print.
9 5/8 x 7 1/4 in. (24.4 x 18.4 cm)
Annotated '3403' in an unidentified hand in pencil on the verso.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

Sold for $38,100

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs
skrueger@phillips.com

 

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

Photographs

New York Auction 11 October 2023