Bridget Wylde Tends to her Shop on Market Street, Ennis, 1954

© The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Pau…

Dorothea Lange , American, 1895-1965

Title

Datec.1955

MediumGelatin silver print

Dimensions

20.1 × 20.2 cm

Credit LinePurchased, 2019

Object numberNGI.2019.208

DescriptionDorothea Lange began her career as a portrait photographer in San Francisco, although it was her iconic images of destitute migrant workers during America's Great Depression of the 1930s that made her name. Inspired by an anthropologist’s book, titled 'The Irish Countryman', Dorothea Lange persuaded the editors of Life magazine to hire her and her son Daniel Dixon to create a photo-essay about Ireland for their magazine. During the Autumn of 1954, Dorothea Lange photographed for a month in Ireland, mainly in the western county of Clare. Here she met and befriended hard-working people of modest means who, unlike the tenant farmers and displaced migrants of the Great Depression farmed and worked their family-owned land. With her son Daniel Dixon providing text, Lange submitted a story based on her photographs to Life magazine, 'Irish Country People', which was published (in a heavily edited form) in the March 21, 1955 issue. Lange is represented by 4 photographs of Ireland in the NGI collection (NGI.2019.206-209).
ProvenancePrivate Collection, California, USA; purchased, Richard Moore Photographs, California, USA, 2019Exhibition HistoryNew Perspectives. Acquisitions 2011 - 2020, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 11 May - 2 August 2021