Voiced by Ellen Anne Chong
“You should really do something with these Dorothea Lange prints.”
The family collection of nineteen images, snapped by Dorothea herself during the late 1920s and early 1930s, sat safely tucked away in a fire safe on the closet floor. Signed, mounted, original Lange photographs. No one had seen them in over thirty years.
The call to do something with them did get answered, but first, let’s see how the story got to this point.
Way back in the second decade of the 20th century there was a young woman by the name of Louise Sheppa. One day, she walked into a San Francisco photographer’s studio to sit for a portrait. She left with a new friend, photographer Dorothea Lange. Their friendship continued for the rest of their lives.
That lady, Louise, went on to marry a man named Lovett, and eventually, I came into the world when their oldest daughter delivered their youngest grandchild. Lucky me.
Stay with me, the dots do connect.
During the late 1920s, Louise’s parents, O.R. and Nina Sheppa (Nī-nah, not Nee-na) were living on and working a small farm outside of Santa Cruz, California, along Soquel Creek. The Sheppas had named this plot of land “La Labranza” and they made an honest, modest, and happy living from the soil.
La Labranza served as home to Louise and her family as well, and Dorothea and her artist husband Maynard Dixon would visit with their two boys in tow, often times camping out in a tipi under cottonwoods along the creek.
Those familiar with the story of Dorothea’s life know that often, her young sons spent periods in the care of others while Dorothea set about her work. My great-grandparents and my Lovett grandparents welcomed these boys into their home at La Labranza, taking care of them while Dorothea was away at times.
My mother and her sister were children then, and they played in the orchards and in the creek with Dorothea’s boys. At times, Dorothea was there with her camera as both families skinny-dipped and bathed in the sun, while the elder Sheppas went about the business of raising cherries, dahlias, and crops of all sorts.
At some point, Dorothea had these photographs printed and mounted and then gifted them to my grandmother. I know that grandma was taken with this, as I’ve run across notes that mention them, ‘…so-and-so came to visit…we pulled out Dorothea’s photos to enjoy…’. That sort of thing.
I tear up just reading my grandmother’s words. I miss these people, and I never even met my great-grandparents. I even miss their dog, Flink.
Dorothea captured images of my long-lost loved ones in their daily lives, happy during the height of the Great Depression. What a gift.
***
I was probably 17 or 18 years old when I first saw the bulk of grandma Lovett’s Lange collection. By then, grandma had passed and the photos had been handed down.
There were larger prints by Dorothea floating around the family that I was familiar with, in our home and my aunt’s home, but I had no idea how famous the person behind the lens was. These were simply family photos on the wall. I didn’t know how special they were.
I was unaware that this particular collection existed until one night, I was sitting on our couch next to a dude I was dating at the time (and that’s a different story).
My mom walked in and presented a manila envelope. It was full of the most incredible family photos that I had never seen before, and she shared them with me and said dude. Even he was impressed.
Some prints were of my great-grandparents, tough yet gentle as they went about their lives. There were shots of naked children, my mom, her sister, and Dorothea’s boys having fun in the sun. And, nude photos of my grandparents.
Whoa. What?
I didn’t expect to see my grandma, aka ‘the hippie grandma’ au natural, but I could stretch my imagination and understand how she could go there. But grandpa? I had no idea he would ever have stripped down naked, outside, for everyone to see. Especially with a camera nearby.
My date commented that at least grandpa had the sense to keep his hat on.
Anyhoo…That was my introduction to the collection of photos that wound up sitting in my fire safe for three decades.
***
This brings us back to the day I heard the call to do something with this family treasure. At the time, I did volunteer work at a local art museum, Peninsula Museum of Art, a non-profit. It was a particularly nice venue, yet struggled to draw in visitors. I took the collection, still in the same manila envelope that my mother placed them in, to the museum’s director and simply let her take a look.
I left her office with an exhibition on the schedule.
The non-profit museum did not have the funds for conservation work and framing. With a lot of work, and painful out-of-my-own-pocket expenses for conservation and framing, the show was remarkable. There was a bit of an uptick in visitors to the museum during its run, so I think it was worth it.
While I do own these prints, the Oakland Museum of California owns the negatives and the copyrights. These images are included in Dorothea’s personal work and are not in the public domain. The powers that be at OMCA graciously granted our little non-profit museum the right to reproduce the images to promote the exhibition. We were very grateful for this.
Upon the closing of the show, my husband and I took down the photos and carefully packed them back into the custom boxes the framer had made for them. Today, grandma’s collection is stored in a safe place, nicely framed and mounted to archival museum-quality standards.
No one has seen them in years.
I have not contacted the OMCA for the rights to post images to Substack, but you can click this link to take a peek PMA’s page promoting the exhibition:
Peninsula Museum of Art: Dorothea Lange: The Louise Lovett Collection
Thanks for stopping by! Until next time, Ellen Anne Chong
A version of this story appeared on my Medium page.
That was indeed a memorable show! So glad I had the opportunity to attend.