Capturing the moment

An exhibition that claims to explore the relationship between painting and photography fails to deliver on its promise, says Tracy Calder. However, if you like great art and you're willing to ignore the brief, you're in for a treat

- Tracy Calder

Back in July, I found myself alone in a cavernous room staring at Dorothea Lange’s portrait of Florence Thompson (more commonly known as ‘Migrant Mother’). Like most people, I’ve seen this picture many times in books, newspapers and magazines, so when I occasionally see it in a gallery, I’m bringing a fair amount of knowledge (and personal feeling) to the viewing experience. Lange spotted Thompson in a pea-pickers camp in Nipomo, California, in 1936 and felt compelled to photograph her as she sheltered in a makeshift tent. ‘I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet,’ she revealed in Popular Photography magazine in 1960.

Thompson and her sizeable brood are said to have been surviving on frozen vegetables and birds foraged from the fields surrounding the camp. Lange was working for what would later be called the Farm Security Administration, an agency set up to support farm workers during the Great Depression. What I didn’t know, was that the photographer apparently promised Thompson a print, which she never delivered, and, according to the editor of The Modesto Bee newspaper, the labourer wished the shot had never been taken.

The threat of photography