She is a tree of life to them
(1950s)
Medium
gelatin silver photograph
Measurements
32.8 × 24.1 cm (image and sheet)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
© Consuelo Kanaga
Gallery location
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Ground Level, NGV International
About this work
Consuelo Kanaga worked at the San Francisco Chronicle from 1915, later joining the California Camera Club, where she met photographers Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange and Edward Weston. Kanaga’s image-making was informed by her involvement in liberal politics and the nascent civil rights movement. In 1950 she stayed in an artists’ colony in Maitland, Florida, and documented the lives of Black field workers living there. This refined portrait of a mother with her children became well known around the world after its inclusion in the touring exhibition The Family of Man, curated by pioneering photographer Edward Steichen.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
United States
Inscription
inscribed in pencil on support l.c.r.: Consuelo Kanaga
Accession Number
2024.599
Department
International Photography