Swinehart on Gordon’s “Dorothea Lange”

David PesciJanuary 25, 20101min
Kirk Swinehart reviews a new biography of a well-known, pioneering female photographer.

In The Chicago Tribune, Assistant Professor of History Kirk Swinehart reviews Dorthea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits, by Linda Gordon. Despite enduring attempts to wrap Lange in larger than life folklore and mystique, Gordon says that the pioneering photographer from the last century saw herself less as a proto feminist and “artist” and more of a working photojournalist, albeit, one who enjoyed the limelight. According to Swinehart, “In its grace, precision, and infinite subtlety, Gordon’s biography resembles Lange herself. Indeed, the whole is founded on a bedrock of human decency that Lange would have admired.”