Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Learning to See
Elise Hooper
Review by Priscilla Comen
Learning to See
Elise Hooper
Review by Priscilla Comen
Learning to See, by Elise Hooper, is the story in her own voice of photographer Dorothea Lange. It’s a well-researched fictional account of her motivations, fears, and dreams set against the time of the Great Depression. A flashback takes us to 1916 on a train in San Francisco when the money of Lange and her friend was stolen. They stay in San Francisco where Fron gets a job at a Western Union office. Dorothea is 23 years old. Fron is a beauty and men gravitate to her.
Lange had polio as a child and walks with a limp. She wants to open her own portrait studio and gets a job at a camera store developing photos of the city: developments, cars everywhere. Every person is shown driving a Ford or posing in front of one. Lange is invited to dinner at a customer’s house and meets the wife, Imogen Cunningham, of the host,. They become friends for life. Cunningham invites Lange to a meeting of a camera club. Lange begins taking photos of Fron to show at the club, opens a portrait studio on Nob Hill, gets sponsors easily as she is a fine business woman, and becomes the most sought-after portrait photographer in the city.
Maynard Dixon, a famous artist, comes to see her, puts a record on the turntable, and grabs her for a dance. She loves it, and invites him to Fron’s engagement party. Cunningham tells her Maynard is married and has a daughter. Lange feels like a fool, but on the ferry home, Maynard apologizes and she forgives him in her apartment. After their marriage, they travel to the Southwest. In Tuba City, Oklahoma they stop at an Indian school and observe the teachers hitting the students. When her baby, Don, is born, Lange is not prepared to be a mother. Maynard takes off for trips for sketching and painting for months. Cunningham helps her with meals and mothering.
Sometimes Maynard’s paintings sell, often his shows are a bust. He has affairs with other women. Lange is pregnant again. Maynard promises to be a good father and husband. In 1929, the stock market crashes and Maynard’s sales dry up. Artist Diego Rivera gets a commission that Maynard was supposed to have. It was the Stock Exchange mural. They are invited to a dinner party for Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo. She and Lange become close friends. They both limp in the same way. Frida and Lange work together in Lange’s studio. Frida and Diego return to Mexico, and Dorothea and Maynard drive to Taos, New Mexico. On the way, they have an accident. Maynard breaks his wrist and jaw. Dorothea drives the rest of the way. When they return to San Francisco, the city is quiet, beggars line the streets. Her friend Fron leaves to be with her family in New Jersey, and Dorothea feels alone. Maynard gets drunk at North Beach every night. She and Maynard separate, and put their two boys into foster care.
Dorothea starts going downtown to photograph what’s happening to people’s lives. She realizes she has a story to tell to the world. A story of people who work, rest, love, and suffer. She photographs the hobo jungles. On “bloody Thursday” she photographs the chaos. The photos felt risky, and worthwhile, and Dorothea felt awake. Hard times were forcing everyone to change. Dr. Taylor, an economics professor at Berkeley, sees Dorothea as an artist, a storyteller. They travel to Nipomo, near San Luis Obispo, together, he to write, she to photograph. At an encampment of migrant farm workers, she photographs “Migrant Mother” with her children under a tent she later had to sell to buy food. This becomes the most famous photo ever published. See this one and several of her photos on line at https://www.moma.org/artists/3373. Does she become recognized and famous for her daring photos of these hard times? Is she happier after she marries Taylor? Find this historical novel on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Lange had polio as a child and walks with a limp. She wants to open her own portrait studio and gets a job at a camera store developing photos of the city: developments, cars everywhere. Every person is shown driving a Ford or posing in front of one. Lange is invited to dinner at a customer’s house and meets the wife, Imogen Cunningham, of the host,. They become friends for life. Cunningham invites Lange to a meeting of a camera club. Lange begins taking photos of Fron to show at the club, opens a portrait studio on Nob Hill, gets sponsors easily as she is a fine business woman, and becomes the most sought-after portrait photographer in the city.
Maynard Dixon, a famous artist, comes to see her, puts a record on the turntable, and grabs her for a dance. She loves it, and invites him to Fron’s engagement party. Cunningham tells her Maynard is married and has a daughter. Lange feels like a fool, but on the ferry home, Maynard apologizes and she forgives him in her apartment. After their marriage, they travel to the Southwest. In Tuba City, Oklahoma they stop at an Indian school and observe the teachers hitting the students. When her baby, Don, is born, Lange is not prepared to be a mother. Maynard takes off for trips for sketching and painting for months. Cunningham helps her with meals and mothering.
Sometimes Maynard’s paintings sell, often his shows are a bust. He has affairs with other women. Lange is pregnant again. Maynard promises to be a good father and husband. In 1929, the stock market crashes and Maynard’s sales dry up. Artist Diego Rivera gets a commission that Maynard was supposed to have. It was the Stock Exchange mural. They are invited to a dinner party for Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo. She and Lange become close friends. They both limp in the same way. Frida and Lange work together in Lange’s studio. Frida and Diego return to Mexico, and Dorothea and Maynard drive to Taos, New Mexico. On the way, they have an accident. Maynard breaks his wrist and jaw. Dorothea drives the rest of the way. When they return to San Francisco, the city is quiet, beggars line the streets. Her friend Fron leaves to be with her family in New Jersey, and Dorothea feels alone. Maynard gets drunk at North Beach every night. She and Maynard separate, and put their two boys into foster care.
Dorothea starts going downtown to photograph what’s happening to people’s lives. She realizes she has a story to tell to the world. A story of people who work, rest, love, and suffer. She photographs the hobo jungles. On “bloody Thursday” she photographs the chaos. The photos felt risky, and worthwhile, and Dorothea felt awake. Hard times were forcing everyone to change. Dr. Taylor, an economics professor at Berkeley, sees Dorothea as an artist, a storyteller. They travel to Nipomo, near San Luis Obispo, together, he to write, she to photograph. At an encampment of migrant farm workers, she photographs “Migrant Mother” with her children under a tent she later had to sell to buy food. This becomes the most famous photo ever published. See this one and several of her photos on line at https://www.moma.org/artists/3373. Does she become recognized and famous for her daring photos of these hard times? Is she happier after she marries Taylor? Find this historical novel on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.