Object Record
Images
Metadata
Artist |
Welty, Eudora |
Title |
A Woman of the Thirties |
Medium |
Black and white photograph on paper |
Date |
1935 |
Description |
Eudora Welty (Jackson, Mississippi 1909-2001 Jackson, Mississippi) A Woman of the Thirties, 1935 Black and white photograph on paper 13 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches Knoxville Museum of Art, 1992 gift of David Lovett Author and photographer Eudora Welty is perhaps best known for her Depression-era novels and photographs, particularly The Optimist's Daughter, which earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Working on assignment during the 1930s for the WPA (Works Progress Administration), a government-funded program to create jobs for the unemployed, Welty used her small Kodak Brownie camera to produce timeless photographs of rural Mississippi in the wake of the Great Depression. As in this work, Welty's images often call attention to extreme poverty and grueling working conditions affecting rural African American communities in particular. In 1989, Welty said of the woman in this photograph, "she was well aware of her predicament in poverty, and had good reasons for hopelessness. Well, she wasn't hopeless. That was the point. She was courageous. She thought it was a hopeless situation, but she was tackling it." |
Catalog Number |
1992.06.20 |
Search Terms |
Black & white photographs Photographs Prints Paper Portraits Portrait photographs Women Artists |