Woman with Pincurls, from the "City Life" series

Getty Museum

Woman with Pincurls, from the "City Life" series

Creator

Dorothea Lange

American Photographer · 1895–1965

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Artist

Born Dorothea Nutzhorn in Hoboken, New Jersey, to first-generation German Americans, Dorothea Lange was stricken at age seven with polio, which left her right leg and foot disfigured. Her father abandoned the family when she was twelve. After high school, she apprenticed with portrait photographer Arnold Genthe in Manhattan and studied with Clarence H. White at Columbia University’s Teacher’s Coll

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Object Description · Getty Museum

> Dorothea Lange's interest in the people who compose the American scene shifted from the country's rural inhabitants to those of the city in the 1940s. Working for the Office of War Information, she made pictures of prosperous Americans, some newly arrived in California to assist in the manufacture of ships and arms in the boomtowns of Oakland and Richmond, others longtime residents of Irish, Italian, or French enclaves established by earlier waves of immigrants to San Francisco. > > Lange used a more covert approach in this street scene compared to two 1945 images—*Market Street, San Francisco* ([2000.50.20](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/128411/dorothea-lange-market-street-san-francisco-american-1945/)) and *Women Walking/Market Street* ([2000.50.21](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/128412/dorothea-lange-three-women-walking-market-street-san-francisco-american-1945/)). Her elderly subject is carefully dressed—a clean silk scarf tucked into a pressed collar—and fastidiously coiffed. The energy of her tightly wound curls makes a remarkable contrast to the long straight lines of her right ear and wrinkled jaw. Adapted from Judith Keller, *Dorothea Lange,* In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002), p. 60. © 2002 J. Paul Getty Trust.

Getty Museum’s catalogue record

produced_by.carried_out_by[0].id
https://data.getty.edu/museum/collection/person/d6446240-36e4-49d8-a9e7-bf0126c6cd95
Artist/Maker
Dorothea Lange
subject_of[Homepage].id
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/108H52
Date
about 1951
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Culture
American
Object Type
Print

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Getty Museum’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

From LinkedCulture

In 1951, Dorothea Lange pointed her camera at the back of a stranger's head, and somehow made it unforgettable. This gelatin silver print from her "City Life" series shows an elderly woman from behind, her tightly wound pincurls coiled with striking precision above a silk scarf tucked neatly into a pressed collar. Lange never shows us her face, asking us to read a whole life through those careful details. It proves that dignity can be found in a single, quietly observed moment on a city street.

Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.

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Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.UqX5PPobXF0G_kmP.oeKr0I6RfH-_d6Yp94ZrSNkZUHKzvxx6xhxdfjh0K5UeNhIyx2JUI_Y9ThUxaH_sxQPKymXy58MgSEBfiflNificH4wm1Pk2TJKXE2vSLaUmlRBckrJW1a8PUFpI2ZDoZO5H3s47f1Ub7dll6ZlDTFsgcY6wQKg-DDWQzq-3cDzagSHROa757ijP9tSb7qE1A7Ns5b0Y_6zD6Ps6MK4wY543p35aLePn1QbWA-BpjB4I2kLgnGpTLDwdTEZkkywr3B_17JYkVpS3fv9607SvvKkq1PHgkiy8Hd5CH0Bj65DYsWF951Xr8BZ7PNzKiogudboUEqN6sjW3N3CZKzH7QZOnIo8juvgQEYCutdZ7KZ13jVVlI-jpeD9edYzA8FZiObhGRBAd-El5PpOdb-WGSee at Getty Museum QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.GAyY4p6j6WZDjOHF.YvcpzM2o3habX3t-BgtJhkV9yGi8KQGkVthMeSqr7VZRCk3Jzsq42U1vFyeWsRoeEuQiPzaDoIKsyjyCc74e1fz5OWi_0atRu5JeiZXG8ksRkonhA0QvWI5i3u65O3AHFiCBgyOzVBctBdvDE2ep6c_DiqibGo5Ch8eOlMBcflr5gebykpZ5wZOBvOfhioDgUV5uFD62YfW_J6cS2jl4Ryvvqc8IiLkJfw1fD3y9bnbcyOzwPHx9a1xRfk-Y6oabu8saZGZqIKdNmyeNi9rd_BS1WRd18RlcV7ih2ERT0DbSsGxgsQKut-Qi7Ea7FIdUXMPL32RA2XUIRQ0H73k4AAE0lv3enYSqzczjYdA0eIwYAT2EYe1CWUanpFg
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To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Getty Museum’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
e4ec1f6f-0518-4c50-a8cd-37dc55a50441
Object Type
Print
  • Getty Museum field “Object Type” · copied as is
Creator
Dorothea Lange
  • Getty Museum field “Artist/Maker” · copied as is
Culture
American
  • Getty Museum field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
Gelatin silver print
  • Getty Museum field “Medium” · copied as is
Department
Photographs
  • Getty Museum field “Department” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Getty's classification category is stored as department.
Credit Line
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
  • Getty Museum field “Standard Credit Line” · the first available of several museum fields
  • Getty Museum field “Source Credit Line” · the first available of several museum fields
Date
about 1951
  • Getty Museum field “Date” · copied as is
Begin Year
1951
  • Getty Museum field “produced_by.timespan.begin_of_the_begin” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field
End Year
1951
  • Getty Museum field “produced_by.timespan.end_of_the_end” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

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Woman with Pincurls, from the "City Life" series

Oct 13, 2026 · Short

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