After an early career as portrait photographer, Dorothea Lange dedicated her life to documenting life during the Great Depression, telling people’s stories, as truthfully as possible, through her photographs. As one of our first professional photojournalists, she travelled through the country for the Farm Security Administration to capture the lives of impoverished sharecroppers, documented life inside the Japanese Incarceration Camps and in booming coast towns during WWII, and contributed to many major publications like LIFE magazine. 

This virtual examination of Lange’s life and oeuvre by art enthusiast and educator Sylvia Laudien-Meo will show how throughout her career Lange was keenly aware of the power of words which could “extend, buttress, illuminate, and explain the photograph” in form of captions, but could also increasingly be ‘found’ in our environment in form of advertisements, signs etc., adding to a picture’s story.

Dorothea very carefully composed her thought provoking images while always dedicated to being truthful, taking extensive field notes, including her subject’s comments and personal observations and created many iconic images.

Sylvia will have a close look at many of her works and discuss her various projects, her compositional choices and the interrelationship of image and word in her photographs.

Sylvia has been working in New York City's art field in many different capacities: as lecturer/ educator at MoMA, the Guggenheim and The Jewish Museum, and as tour guide, conducting tours focusing on art, architecture and urban culture in general. She also teaches art history at FDU in Madison, NJ including classes on the history of photography.

Registration is required for this program and the zoom link will be emailed the day before the event.

The program is made possible with the support of The Friends of the Livingston Public Library.