A Depression era icon

I have finally set to right the inexcusable omission of a monograph on Dorothea Lange from my library.

Where Walker Evans mostly photographed things, Lange photographed people. And her pictures always seem to get to the emotional heart of her subjects and the horrors of the Great Depression.

The monograph, titled ‘Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime’, is a splendid review of her work, covering the period 1932-59 and, as with all monographs published by Aperture, is of the highest quality.

It’s overpriced new, but my used copy came from Strand Books for under $40. That’s another bookseller which should be in every photographer’s address book.

In the photographer’s words:

“You force yourself to watch and wait. You accept all the discomfort and the disharmony. Being out of your depth is a very uncomfortable thing …. You force yourself onto strange streets, among strangers. It may be very hot. It may be painfully cold. It may be sandy and windy and you say “What am I doing here? What drives me to do this hard thing?”

The book relates the story of how she came to take her most famous picture, that of the migrant mother in Nipomo, CA. The story is so incredible that I will not retell it here and suggest, instead, that you buy this book to read all about it.

If you want to see the depredations visited upon this great nation by stunningly incompetent administrations of both parties, aided and abetted by a seemingly uncaring and callous Federal Reserve, you need go no further than Lange’s great humanism, as displayed in her pictures.

Those who deny history are doomed to repeat it

A newly elected US president of patrician education and with sophisticated communication skills has just replaced one who destroyed more wealth than all his predecessors combined. The new wunderkind immediately sets to dramatically increasing the length of a catastrophic depression by increasing tariffs on trade and immigration and destroying business confidence by capricious fiscal policies and increased taxation to go along with his populist platform.

2009?

How about 1929?

It was to the disastrous fiscal policies of the FDR presidency that a fleeing John Gutmann resorted, pursued by the Master Race which sought nothing but ill for non-Aryans. To put this in perspective, imagine thinking that 1933 America – Gutmann’s choice as a refugee from Germany – was the best possible place to be! Which, I suppose, puts in context what he left behind. On a much smaller scale I am reminded of coming to America from England in 1977 and thinking that the then current US administration was actually not so bad compared to the catastrophe I had left behind.

Unlike his compatriots who mostly settled in New York, Gutmann made San Francisco his home and I only recently learned of his photography after seeing a sample in the splendid book, Capturing Light, which now graces my bookshelves.

It did not take long to add a monograph on Gutmann’s work, entitled ‘Culture Shock’. Here is the cover picture:

Gutmann started life as an art student in ’20s Berlin, that fertile melting pot for artistic talent at the time, but fascist control of the media and arts by 1933 made his position untenable, so he left for America, purchasing the newly introduced Rolleiflex just a month before leaving. His imagery built on his expressionist and surrealist leanings and is most reminiscent, to this viewer, of the work of Martin Munkácsi and Alexander Rodchenko. As the essay introducing the book states, “To Gutmann’s eye …. everything in America was exotic and strange”. I know the feeling.

While it’s out of print, my pristine example of ‘Culture Shock’ was obtained for very little at Powell’s Books which anyone interested in the visual arts should have in his bookmarks. Highly recommended if you enjoy an unusual vision strongly applied to everyday life.

Book review

This wonderful survey of California photography from daguerrotypes to the present served as the catalog for an exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California’s exhibition ‘Masterpieces of California Photography, 1850 to the Present’ and is edited by its photography curator Drew Heath Johnson.

With many, many fine reproductions and several quite splendid essays it’s a superb introduction to California photography in a large format.

When I tell you that remiandered or lightly used copies are to be found on the web and that mine cost all of $11 shipped, what are you waiting for?

As Edward Weston cheekily said, “Everything worth photographing is in California”.

The truth is told

This splendid depression era picture by John Gutmann says it all.

Among the inscriptions on the car is one which says: “Yes, Columbus did discover America. We have discovered the international bankers have taken it away from us.”

Probably taken in San Francisco’s Mission District.

A questionable categorization

I came across a book named ‘Women Photographers’ the other day and couldn’t but wonder at the arrogance of the title. To in some way suggest that gender distinction was worthy of a book simply raised my hackles. A good photograph is just that. A good photograph. To try to ladle distinction on a subset of the species just because it happens to include pictures made solely by women seems specious.

But it did get me thinking, I confess. Click on ‘Photography Books’ below and you will see what’s currently in my library. I see monographs on Barbara Morgan, Germaine Krull, Joyce Tenneson, Imogen Cunningham, Ilse Bing, Margaret Bourke-White, Mary Ellen Mark, Regina Relang and Tina Modotti. Yet not a one of these was bought because the photographer was a woman. They were bought for the simple reason that the photography was special and unique.

Strangely I seem not to have anything by Dorothea Lange, so here’s a reminder of what she did and a mental note to fix that omission at the earliest occasion.

Migrant Mother. The most famous Depression era picture

Lange snapped this in Nipomo, CA, just a few miles south of the old estate. Lange was a great photographer who just happened to be a woman.