One of the most recognised and reproduced photographic images in the world is the care-worn visage of Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936). The mother’s gaze no doubt strikes some viewers, and rightfully so, as Marian. This is a mother who has witnessed the hardship, if not the death, of those she loves.
That emblematic face serves as the frontispiece for Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing, an exhibition first held at the Oakland Museum of California in 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of the artist’s gift to them of her personal archive. This collection travelled to both the Barbican in London and the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2018 and early 2019 before arriving at the Frist Museum, Nashville, Tennessee, where it is today.
