4200 - Lange, Dorothea

Lange, Dorothea General Strike, San Francisco. 1934. Gelatin silver print, printed in the early 1970s. 34.2 x 26.5 cm (sheet 35.5 x 27.8 cm). Photographer’s “1163 Euclid Avenue Berkeley, California” stamp and number in pencil on the reverse. During the Great Depression, Lange shifted her focus from studio portraiture to photographing the social and economic hardship she encountered on the streets of San Francisco. Her images of breadlines and labor demonstrations established the direct, socially engaged approach that would define her documentary work. This photograph of the 1934 General Strike combines a strong sense of composition with close attention to the people and tensions surrounding the labor movement. That year, economist Paul Taylor, who later became Lange’s second husband, used another of her photographs to illustrate an article on the strike in *Survey Graphic*. It marked the beginning of their professional and personal relationship. – Pinholes and small creases at the corners, mostly in the margins; a few handling dents in the lower area and one near the upper left edge; otherwise in very good condition. Lit.: Robert Coles. Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime. New York: Aperture, 1982, ill. p. 47. Therese Thau Heyman, Sandra S. Phillips, and John Szarkowski. *Dorothea Lange: American Photographs*. San Francisco: SFMOMA, 1994, ill. pl. 10.