News Release

In a departure from her Depression-era images capturing the plight of migrant farm workers, photographer Dorothea Lange reveals intimate, everyday scenes depicting the bond between her family and the environment of Steep Ravine in a new exhibition opening Jan. 19 in the Skylight Gallery at the Main Library.

In A Life Surrounding a Cabin: Dorothea Lange at Steep Ravine, which will be on display through March 16, we see how the environment at Steep Ravine (Marin County) shaped the identity of and relationships within Lange’s family. She described the photographs as documenting the “natural growth of the children” and the pleasure it gave her to see them “so happy and free there.”

In the late 1950s, Lange (1895–1965) and her second husband Paul Taylor began leasing a small cabin perched on the rocky coast of Marin County. They traveled to Steep Ravine many times over the years with their children and grandchildren, crossing the San Francisco Bay from their home in Berkeley—a short distance, but worlds away. Surrounded by the wildness of natural elements on the western edge of Mt. Tamalpais, this became a profoundly significant place for Lange and her family. The cabin and its environs so inspired her that she often spoke of creating a book of photographs exploring the sense of freedom she discovered there, but she was unable to complete the project before her death in 1965.

Lange is best known for her work documenting the conditions of migrant laborers during the Depression. Her photography was pivotal in emphasizing laborers’ dignity and pride amidst widespread poverty. She and Taylor, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, collaborated on a report to accompany her photographs, which resulted in the establishment of state-built camps for migrants. Lange also took to the streets of San Francisco, where she documented the lives of everyday people in such powerful images as White Angel Breadline (1933) and the iconic Migrant Mother, depicting a family living on a pea farm on the California Central Coast during the Depression.

Daniel Dixon (son of Dorothea Lange and first husband painter Maynard Dixon) and his wife, Dixie, will kick off the exhibition with a two-hour opening presentation. Dixon will detail the appeals of his mother’s oeuvre in a lecture entitled, “A Universal Language.” In the second hour, he will discuss Lange’s collaborative relationship with Maynard Dixon. The presentation takes place 1:30–3:30 p.m. on Jan. 19 in the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium.

On Feb. 19, filmmaker Meg Partridge will screen her film Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life. The screening, which starts at 6 p.m. in Koret Auditorium at the Main Library, will be followed by a Q & A session with Partridge; her father, Rondal Partridge, a long-time colleague and friend of Lange; and Betsy Partridge, a Lange biographer.

The exhibition and all programs are free and open to the public.
Call (415) 557-4277 for more information.

Note: Photos are available for publication.