Dorothea Lange, Emily Carr, And Daphne Odjig

When I undertook this project I wanted to choose female artists who were outstanding at their craft regardless of their gender, while also I wanted female artist who’s work had themes that the mainstream art industry neglected. The three artists I will be focusing on are Dorothea Lange, Emily Carr, and Daphne Odjig. Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration. Emily Carr was a Canadian painter and writer heavily inspired by the Aboriginal peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Carr was one of the first painters in Canada to adopt a Modernist and Post-Impressionist painting style. Daphne Odjig is a Canadian First Nations

Lange had started off as a portrait photographer in San Francisco, but during the Great Depression she moved back to New York and started taking photos with the common people of New York’s Lower East side. The two photos in my PowerPoint presentation, “Migrant Mother”, and “White Angel Breadline” (IMAGE 2), depict the circumstances of day-to-day life as opposed to the ideal life. Similar to the art gallery we visited last month the photos taken were natural or authentic and depict what the common person was going through during the Great Depression. “White Angel Breadline” was taken at a soup kitchen in San Francisco called White Angel Jungle. As her photography shows, Lange had the utmost empathy and appreciation for the people she photographed, with special care for women. Yet Lange’s family life was second fiddle to her photography career, as she put her work before her family. The irony was she was more comfortable on the road taking photos with strangers than at home with her family. She was disabled as a young girl by polio, yet she did not let that disability define her. According to Linda Morris Lange was equally unwilling to give in to other kinds of limitations imposed upon her. As a mother she never considered giving up

Although the other two artists were not as eccentric as Carr, but these different circumstances gave these artists an advantage over other artists. They had more life experiences and ones that differ from the norm. All 3 of these women thought outside the conventional box, which is a common trait of greatness in any career. One has to be confident and courageous in his/her beliefs regardless of how society sees them. Odjig was not encouraged to practice her religion due to the fact that the church intervened, thus she used art to create legend paintings as a way of expressing her religious beliefs and giving a voice to the voiceless, particularly her First Nations community. Furthermore, I choose to focus on these three artists in particular because they are women artist who dealt with the lowest class and least supported groups of society, for instance Lange dealt with a poverty stricken mother in her work, Carr had first nations themes in her earlier paintings, and Odjig was a first nation’s painter. The photo I selected for Odjig is called “Rhythm of the Drum” (image 4) I chose this picture because it depicts her first nation themes, while also in similarly with the “Big Raven” there’s a bird in the picture. The colors of this picture are memorizing and the picture is aesthetically pleasing to look