Master Photographers

of the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s

{
Edward Weston

Dorothea Lange

Gordon Parks

Edward Weston
(1886 1958)

Has been called one of the

most innovative and influential
American photographers
Weston photographed a wide
variety of subjects, including
still lifes, landscapes, nudes,
and portraits
Focused on the people and
places of the American West

Born in Chicago and moved to

California at age 21
Knew he wanted to be a
photographer from an early age
Attended the Illinois School of
Photography
Opened his own studio in 1911,
taking portraits of children and
friends
Gained recognition for his work
and won prizes in national
competitions

Weston in 1915

His early work was part of a

photography movement called
pictoralism
Pictoralists manipulated their
images to make them look more
artistic
Images often lacked sharp focus,
were printed in colours other
than black & white, and had
visible brushstrokes or other
surface textures

Karl and Ethel, 1923

Other examples of Westons early Pictoralist work

He moved to Mexico from 1923 to 1927 and the

different culture and scenery forced him to look at
things in new ways
He moved away from pictoralism and embraced
realism
The camera should be used for a recording of life,
for rendering the very substance and quintessence of
the thing itselfI feel definite in the belief that the
approach to photography is through realism

Janitzio, Patzcuaro, 1926

Charrito, 1926

Weston is well known for many of the nude portraits

he took throughout the 1920s and 1930s
His photos often isolated specific body parts and
reduced the human figure down to its basic forms

Nude, 1925

Nude, 1927

Nude, 1936

Weston developed a similar interest in the organic

forms of fruits, vegetables, rocks, and seashells

Shell, 1927

Pepper No. 30, 1930

In 1937, Weston was the first photographer to receive

a Guggenheim Fellowship
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease
and he stopped photographing soon thereafter
He spent the remaining ten years of his life
overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his
most famous images
Weston died at age71 in Big Sur, California

Dorothea Lange
(1895 1965)

An influential American
documentary photographer
and photojournalist
Best known for her
Depression-era work for the
US government
Lange's photographs
humanized the consequences
of the Great Depression

Born in Hoboken, New Jersey

Educated in photography at
Columbia University in New
York City
Moved to San Francisco in
1918 and opened a successful
portrait studio the following
year
When the Great Depression
began in 1929, Lange turned
her camera lens from the
studio to the street

White Angel Bread Line, San

Francisco, 1933

Langes photos of
unemployed and
homeless people led
to her employment
with the federal Farm
Security
Administration
From 1935 to 1939,
Lange documented
sharecroppers,
displaced farm
families, and migrant
workers

Poor mother and children,

Oklahoma, 1936

Mississippi Delta Children, 1936

Mother & children, Tulelake,

California, 1939

Distributed free to
newspapers across the
country, Langes images
became icons of the era
Her best-known picture is
titled "Migrant Mother
I saw and approached the
hungry and desperate
mother, as if drawn by a
magnet. She had just sold
the tires from her car to buy
food.
Migrant Mother, 1936

In 1941, Lange was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship for
excellence in photography
Following the attack on Pearl
Harbor, she covered the
internment of Japanese
Americans
Her images were so obviously
critical that the Army
impounded most of them, and
they were not seen publicly for
more than 50 years

In 1945, Lange was invited to teach photography at

the California School of Fine Arts
In 1952, she co-founded the photographic magazine
Aperture
Lange died of esophageal cancer on October 11, 1965
in San Francisco, California at age 70

Gordon Parks
(1912 2006)

An American photographer,
musician, writer and film
director
Parks was the first AfricanAmerican staff photographer
for Life magazine and later the
first African-American to
direct a major motion picture
He is known for his striking
fashion photography

Parks was born in Fort Scott,

Kansas and attended a
segregated elementary school
At the age of 25, he was struck
by photographs of migrant
workers in a magazine and
bought his first camera
The photography clerks who
developed Parks' first roll of
film, applauded his work and
prompted him to seek work as a
fashion photographer

Parks moved to Chicago in

1940, where he began a
portrait business and
specialized in photographs
of society women
In 1944, he became a
freelance fashion
photographer for Vogue
He developed a distinctive
style, often photographing
his models in motion, or
casual poses

His photographs seemed like he caught his subjects off

guard and mid-action, as if they were waiting for a bus,
in the middle of shopping, or expecting a lunch date

Parks composed his images dramatically and made

them seem as if they were part of a narrative

In 1948, Parks began a staff

job as a photographer and
writer with Life magazine
For 20 years, he covered
subjects including fashion,
sports, Broadway, poverty,
racial segregation, and
portraits of famous
celebrities
In 1971, Parks directed the
major hit film Shaft
He died of cancer at the
age of 93 while living in
Manhattan

Muhammad Ali, Miami, Florida,

1966