Farm Security Administration camp for migrant agricultural workers at Shafter, California

June 1938

Dorothea Lange

Associated Names
Dorothea Lange

Artist, American, 1895 - 1965

The image shows a landscape with a camp or settlement consisting of tents and small structures. The horizon is high in the image, with flat fields meeting the sky. The lack of brushstrokes indicates it is a photograph in black and white. Closest to us are tents and small buildings arranged in a grid pattern, with trees lining dirt roads. A vehicle is parked on one of the roads. Beyond the settlement are cultivated fields divided into rectangular plots. Neat rows of crops lead the eye to clusters of trees and structures in the distance.
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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Joshua P. Smith, Washington, DC (Archive - Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA); gift to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1982; acquired by NGA, 2015.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2014

  • Terra Firma: Landscapes from the Photo and Media Arts Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, July 3 - September 28, 2014.

Inscriptions

on verso, by unknown hand, top left inverted in graphite: face 18 x 13 1/2 picas; center inverted in graphite circled: 6; center perpendicular in graphite circled: 6; center in graphite: 18167-D; by FSA, along right edge perpendicular stamped in black ink with border: PLEASE NOTE: / Kindly Return Unused Photos / to the Division of Information, / Farm Security Administration, / Washington, D.C.; bottom left stamped in black ink: PLEASE CREDIT / F.S.A. / FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION / PHOTO BY: LANGE; across bottom edge inverted typed: FSA camp for migrant agricultural workers at Shafter, Calif, June, 1938

Wikidata ID

Q64146690

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