Gift from the photographer to her son and daughter-in-law Edwynn Houk Gallery, Chicago, 1990 Page Imageworks, San Francisco, as agent
Exhibited
Dorothea Lange: American Photographs, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 19 May - 4 September 1994; and traveling to Milwaukee Art Museum; International Center of Photography, New York; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; and Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, through November 1995 The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 23 April - 22 August 1999 Collected, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, 2 May 2016 - 31 January 2017
Literature
Pier 24 Photography, Collected, p. 109 (this print) Szarkowski, Phillips, and Heyman, Dorothea Lange: American Photographs, pl. 6, variant Davis, The Photographs of Dorothea Lange, p. 35, variant
Catalogue Essay
As recounted by Susie Tompkins Buell in the interview that prefaces this catalogue, Dorothea Lange’s A Sign of the Times—Mended Stockings was the first photograph she acquired. Ms. Buell says of this image: ‘That photograph never ceases to amaze me. It represents something I believe in deeply: a woman holding it together with dignity during the harshest times. It is so poignant to see how Lange recognized the power of that image; it will be a lesson for centuries to come.’
A Sign of the Times–Mended Stockings, Stenographer, San Francisco
1934 Gelatin silver print. 9 1/4 x 6 5/8 in. (23.5 x 16.8 cm) The ‘1163 Euclid Avenue, Berkeley, California, Telephone Landscape-4 3880’ credit stamp and notations in unidentified hands in pencil and ink on the reverse of the flush-mount.
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
Sold for $125,000
Contact Specialist Caroline Deck
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale