A landmark exhibition of Depression-era photography by Dorothea Lange, including the portrait known as “Migrant Mother,” opens at the 14th Xavier Miserachs Biennial in Palafrugell, on Spain’s Costa Brava.
Lange captured the image of Florence Thompson and her children in California in 1936. Thompson, one of many people forced to leave their homes during the Great Depression, became a symbol of poverty. The exhibition presents around 60 photographs held by the U.S. Library of Congress, taken when Lange was hired by the Farm Security Administration during the 1930s and 1940s.
Biennial director Maria Planas said the U.S. government engaged about ten photographers to document Depression-era poverty so that the public would understand the conditions and support measures being taken. Armed with a heavy Graflex camera, Lange recorded the living conditions of rural American families and their flight from the Dust Bowl, the dust storms that destroyed crops and pastures across central parts of the country.
The exhibition, titled “Dorothea Lange: A Long Journey,” greets visitors with an image of Route 66, which Planas described as the road of that entire exodus. It pairs Lange’s photographs with passages from John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath. A series of five images shows how the iconic portrait of Florence Thompson came to be taken.
The biennial also presents the first retrospective of Chilean photographer Sergio Larrain in Catalonia. Larrain, who died in 2012, was the first Latin American photographer to work for the Magnum agency. Magnum exhibitions manager Christiana Vieira told Efe that his work showed things that needed to change, with images of poverty and prostitution among those selected for the show.
The biennial is spread across several venues in Palafrugell and remains open to the public until October 18.
