May 3, 2011 — Patrick Zimmerman

Dorothea Lange, Couple Seated on Porch, Gunlock, Utah, 1953

Dorothea Lange, Anne Carter Johnson, St. George, Utah, 1953

Dorothea Lange, Riley Savage, Toquerville, Utah, 1953

Dorothea Lange, Jake Jones’ Hands, Gunlock, Utah, 1953

Dorothea Lange, Horseplay, Gunlock, Utah, 1953

Dorothea Lange: Three Mormon Towns

In August 1953, renowned American photographer Dorothea Lange traveled to southern Utah where she met up with her long-time friend Ansel Adams. The two photographers spent three weeks photographing the landscape and people of Toquerville, Gunlock and St. George. Lange’s enthusiasm for her subject yielded hundreds of photographs. Thirty-five of those photographs were published as Three Mormon Towns in the September 6, 1954 issue of Life Magazine.

Dorothea Lange’s Three Mormon Towns was recently displayed in exhibition at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art. Three Mormon Towns represents a bridge between Lange’s famous Depression Era photographs and her later detailed photographic essays of the 1950s. Known for her candid and sympathetic depiction of people, Three Mormon Towns presents a study of contrasts: of old and new, of quiet villages and a growing city, of deep roots and transient highways. In this series of photographs, Lange memorialized the dignity and simplicity of agrarian life in light of post-war urbanization.

Dorothea Lange: Portraiture and Documentary Photography

(Please Click Image to View Slide Show)

Please Share This: