Sunday, August 27, 2017

Summer Vacation Redux #6: Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, part 3.1 of 9


Adjacent to the African Art Gallery at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City are a couple of galleries dedicated to Photography.  One displayed works from the museum's collection that were general and chronological in nature, and the other contained a focus show of Depression Era images titled "Dignity versus Despair" with photos by artists who basically made their names documenting this desperate time in our nation's history.  Although I seem to have been unconsciously drawn to the photos by Dorothea Lange--which confirms her iconic status in my mind.  I will begin with images from the focus exhibition.

 "Oklahoma Farm Family on Highway Between Blythe and Indio, California" 1936, Dorothea Lange (American) 1895 - 1965


My mother's family grew up in Oklahoma and knew the dust bowl years well.  More than one uncle and many cousins made this very trek from the despair of western Oklahoma to California.  And what I thought of when I saw this image was the intro to the TV show "Beverly Hillbillies"!

 "Sharecropper Who Receives $5 a Month "Furnish" from Landowner, Macon County, Georgia" 1937, Dorothea Lange (American) 1895 - 1965

 "J. R. Butler, President of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, Memphis, Tennessee" 1938, Dorothea Lange (American) 1895 - 1965

 "Against the Wall, San Francisco" 1934, Dorothea Lange (American) 1895 - 1965


"This photograph of the man with his head on this arms--five years earlier, I would have thought it enough to take a picture of a man, no more.  But now, I wanted to take a picture of a man as he stood in his world--in this case, a man with his head down, with his back against the wall, with his livelihood, like the wheelbarrow, overturned." ~ Dorothea Lange.

 "Former Texas Tenant Farmers Displaced from Their Land by Tractor Farming, Hardeman County, Texas" 1937, Dorothea Lange (American) 1895 - 1965


"All displaced tenant farmers.  The oldest is 33.  All Native Americans, none able to vote because of Texes poll tax.  All on WPA.  They support an average four persons each on $22.80 a month. 

Where we gonna go? 
How we gonna get there? 
What we gonna do? 
Who we gonna fight? 
If we fight, what we gotta whip?"

~ Dorothea Lange

 "Mr. and Mrs. Andy Bahain, Kersey, Colorado" 1939, Arthur Rothstein (American) 1895 - 1965

 "Farmer and Sons in Dust Storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma" 1936, Arthur Rothstein (American) 1895 - 1965

"Joe's Auto Graveyard, Near Easton, Pennsylvania" 1935, Walker Evans (American) 1903 - 1975

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