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J.R. Butler, President of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, Memphis, Tennessee
J.R. Butler, President of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, Memphis, Tennessee

J.R. Butler, President of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, Memphis, Tennessee

Artist Dorothea Lange (American, 1895 - 1965)
DateJune 1938
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 9 5/8 × 7 5/8 inches (24.45 × 19.37 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.4220
SignedArtist's stamp on sheet verso, upper right, in black ink: "PHOTOGRAPH BY / DOROTHEA LANGE / 1163 EUCLID AVENUE / BERKELEY / CALIFORNIA / TELEPHONE LANDSCAPE 4-3880"
InscribedOn sheet verso, center, in black pen: "from the series, "[?] / Memphis, Tennessee, in Labor Union Office"
MarkingsOn sheet verso, top, in pencil: "Vgn T #2" / f / 3.4 / 1 1/2 min"; On sheet verso, lower right, in black marker: "38138".
On View
Not on view
Collections
Exhibition History

Rotation 8. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 12 – October 11, 2010, no. cat.

Dignity vs. Despair: Dorothea Lange and the Depression Era Photographers, 1933-1941. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 23 – November 26, 2017, no cat.

Gallery Label
Dorothea Lange began as a professional portrait photographer in the early 1920s. By the early 1930s, however, the social calamity of the Depression prodded her to leave the studio-and thus to become an artist of great originality and influence. Lange's pictures are deeply humane. She was fascinated by the language of the body: the eloquence of gesture, posture and glance. She had the uncanny ability to see people as both individuals and as representative types.  Through her eyes, for example, this solitary,  exhausted union official suggests the uncertainty, fear and determination of millions  of his fellow Americans.
Copyright© The Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California
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