Eighteen-year-old mother from Oklahoma, now a California migrant

March 1937

Dorothea Lange

Associated Names
Dorothea Lange

Artist, American, 1895 - 1965

This black-and-white photograph shows a woman and a child. The woman is sitting on a chair by the entrance of a gray cloth tent. She has pale skin and dark hair, and she is dressed in a loose-fitting shirt and loose pants. Her elbow is on her knees and her chin rests in her hand, obscuring her mouth and showing us a white wedding ring on her finger. The child is sitting on the ground in front of the woman. This child has pale skin and light blond hair and wears baggy clothing. They are bent forward and have their hands raised up to their mouth. The child's cheeks and mouth appear to be covered in a light gray substance, perhaps food or dirt. The background shows the entrance of the tent with some boxes visible on top of the dirt ground.
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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Article:  The Real Lives of People in Dorothea Lange's Portraits

Four everyday Americans were the subject of her famous photographs. Discover the heartbreak and suffering they faced at crucial points in American history.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

New York Times Photo Archive, New York. (RoseGallery, Santa Monica, CA); Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, Van Nuys, CA, 9 September 2004; gift to NGA, 2016.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2023

  • Dorothea Lange: Seeing People, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, 2023 - 2024, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1994

  • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Dorothea Lange: American Photographs. Exh. cat. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 1994: pl. 45.

Inscriptions

on verso, by Dorothea Lange, upper center in graphite: 18-year old mother from Oklahoma / now a California migrant; by unknown hand, top left in black ink inverted: 6127-L; top right in black ink inverted: 9026[crossed out]- L; upper left stamped in red ink inverted and crossed out with black ink: P OCT 163 / M DEC-562; upper left stamped in red ink inverted: V SEP 10 71; center stamped in blue ink inverted: JUN 5 1995; by unknown hand, center in graphite: 16269-C; center printed in purple ink: Kindly use the following credit line / FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION PHOTOGRAPH BY LANGE; lower right stamped in red ink and circled in graphite inverted: MAR 13, 1938 / [by unknown hand in graphite] Neg; bottom right in graphite and crossed out with blue ink: 9026-L; bottom right in red ink: MOMA

Wikidata ID

Q64146755

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