Dorothea Lange

flush-mounted, the photographer's '1163 Euclid Avenue Berkeley, California' stamp in duplicate and 'Return Print' in pencil on the reverse, flush-mounted again, titled and dated in pencil on the reverse, 1933, probably printed in the late 1940s or early 1950s

Gift of the photographer, 1950s

Private Collection, 2001

Thomas J. Maloney, U. S. Camera 1935, p. 157

Ansel Adams, How To Do It Series, No. 8: Making a Photograph, An Introduction to Photography (New York, 1935), p. 93

Karen Tsujimoto, Dorothea Lange, Archive of an Artist (Oakland Museum of California, 1995), p. 9

Variant Croppings:

Thomas J. Maloney, U. S. Camera 1941, p. 116 

Edward Steichen, ed., The Family of Man (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1955), p. 151

John Szarkowski, Dorothea Lange (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966), p. 20

Therese Thau Heyman, Celebrating a Collection: The Work of Dorothea Lange (Oakland Museum of California, 1978), p. 57

Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime (Aperture, 1982), p. 45 

Therese Thau Heyman, Sandra S. Phillips, and John Szarkowski, Dorothea Lange: American Photographs (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1994), pl. 1

Keith F. Davis, The Photographs of Dorothea Lange (Kansas City, 1995), cover and p. 21

Barbara Haskell, The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900-1950 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1999), pl. 483

Pierre Borhan, Dorothea Lange: The Heart and Mind of a Photographer (Boston, 2002), p. 71

Anne Whiston Spirn, Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange’s Photographs and Reports from the Field (Chicago, 2008), p. 16

This photograph, on slightly eggshell-textured paper with a light surface sheen, is in generally very good condition. It has striking deep blacks and creamy highlights. This print is trimmed ever-so-slightly unevenly at the upper right edge. There is some light wear and retouching to the edges. Upon close examination in raking light, scattered tiny deposits of retouching, likely original, are visible. Several linear hairline creases are barely visible except when the photograph is examined closely in raking light. While these may break the emulsion, there is no resultant flaking or loss of the emulsion. None of the aforementioned are immediately apparent when viewing this dense print at a normal distance, and they do not detract in any way from the overall impressive quality of this print. The reverse of the mount is appropriately age-darkened overall. There are 2 hinge remnants. When examined under ultraviolet light, this print does not appear to fluoresce. This photograph has undergone conservation, primarily to address surface soiling and creasing. For further information, please contact the Photographs department.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In 1933, the United States was in the depths of the Great Depression and Dorothea Lange was working as a portrait photographer in San Francisco.  A breadline sponsored by a wealthy community widow (“The White Angel”) was not far from her studio, and Lange was inspired to take a series of candid street photographs.  ‘I made [White Angel Breadline] on the first day I ever went in an area where people said, "Oh, don't go there,"’ she related to an interviewer. 'It was on the first day that I ever made a photograph actually on the street' (quoted in Photographs of a Lifetime, p. 44). White Angel Breadline became one of the photographer’s most well-known and widely reproduced images, depicting the isolation and helplessness of the masses of American citizens living in poverty.

White Angel Breadline has been variously cropped by countless picture editors of the magazines and books in which it has appeared. It exemplifies how cropping decisions affect viewer interpretation.  Some versions of this image show the unaltered, full-frame format, inclusive of most of a sign at the upper right corner, buildings in the background, and a sea of men waiting in the breadline. In the most well-known version of the image, only a fraction of the sign remains in the frame, the buildings in the background are eliminated entirely, and, other than the man at the front, only one or two other men face forward. The photograph offered here presents the most focused cropping of this iconic image. Nearly all visual information in the background has been eliminated, commanding all attention on the figure who faces away from the crowd and towards Lange’s camera.

In 1935, only two years after Lange made this picture, the image was included in the photography annual U. S. Camera. The cropping chosen for the annual is remarkably similar to that of the present lot.  In these tightly cropped versions of White Angel Breadline, our attention is even further honed on the central figure with his clasped hands and set jaw, emphasizing resilience, isolation, and dignity.   'I had to get my camera to register the things that were more important than how poor they were—their pride, their strength, their spirit' (quoted in Restless Spirit, p. 47).