Getty Museum

Woman with Pincurls, from the "City Life" series

Date

about 1951

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

e4ec1f6f-0518-4c50-a8cd-37dc55a50441

> 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.

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