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Lot Essay
The present lot was printed on Kodak Opal-N matte (smooth lustre) surface paper, which had been introduced to the market in the 1940s. Flush-mounted to Masonite with a white glue (not a mounting tissue), this work is commensurate with the artist’s lifetime practices, including the methods employed for works by Lange, and others, exhibited in the famous 1955 exhibition, The Family of Man, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
This is Lange’s earliest well-known documentary-style photograph, a moving image that depicts a solitary figure with hands clasped, well-worn hat pulled low on his brow, and turned away from a gathering of poverty-stricken men waiting in a breadline at a San Francisco soup kitchen. This particular soup kitchen was independently run, with no outside funding, by Lois Jordan, a wealthy widow known to locals as the White Angel. Jordan is credited with feeding roughly one million men over a several year period.
Taken during the throes of the Great Depression, Lange’s image and photographic work at the time led to her employment with the Federal Resettlement Administration (RA), which later became the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Under these programs, photographers and writers were brought on board to document the plight of the poor across the country. The Information Division of the FSA, under the direction of Roy Stryker, adopted a goal of 'introducing America to Americans.'
Prints of this image reside in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and The Oakland Museum of California, among others.
This is Lange’s earliest well-known documentary-style photograph, a moving image that depicts a solitary figure with hands clasped, well-worn hat pulled low on his brow, and turned away from a gathering of poverty-stricken men waiting in a breadline at a San Francisco soup kitchen. This particular soup kitchen was independently run, with no outside funding, by Lois Jordan, a wealthy widow known to locals as the White Angel. Jordan is credited with feeding roughly one million men over a several year period.
Taken during the throes of the Great Depression, Lange’s image and photographic work at the time led to her employment with the Federal Resettlement Administration (RA), which later became the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Under these programs, photographers and writers were brought on board to document the plight of the poor across the country. The Information Division of the FSA, under the direction of Roy Stryker, adopted a goal of 'introducing America to Americans.'
Prints of this image reside in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and The Oakland Museum of California, among others.