The Horace Bristol exhibit is made possible in part by grants from the California Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Monterey County Overall Economic Development Commission. Additional support is provided by the members and trustees of the National Steinbeck Center and its Agricultural Valley of the World Center Sponsors.The public is invited to the opening reception for the double exhibition on Friday, September 10 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Museum. Museum members and Focus on the Masters members are free; all others are $10. Refreshments will be served. The Ventura County Museum of History & Art is located at 100 E. Main St. in Ventura. Hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Mondays. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 seniors (62+), and $1 children (6-17). Docent-led tours will be available for this special exhibit. For further information on the exhibit, please call the Museum at 653-0323 or visit www.venturamuseum.org.
Dorothea Lange and Horace Bristol photographs at Ventura County Museum
August 27, 2004
Santa Paula News
The Ventura County descendants of Elmer Eugene Lore, Sr. – former California State Assembly member – recently discovered a box of photographs stored for almost 50 years, along with their father’s legislative papers.
The Ventura County descendants of Elmer Eugene Lore, Sr. – former California State Assembly member – recently discovered a box of photographs stored for almost 50 years, along with their father’s legislative papers. They took the photographs to Donna Granata, executive director of Focus on the Masters, to be identified. The black and white prints turned out to be photographs taken by Dorothea Lange, one of the 20th century’s most important photographers. All of the photographs document the plight of families migrating to California during the 1930’s dustbowl exodus.Noted photographer Horace Bristol, who spent his youth in Santa Paula and retired to Ojai before his death in 1996, decided to take his own photographs of Depression-era migrant families after seeing his friend Dorothea Lange’s powerful images. Lange took Bristol on his first visit to California’s Central Valley migrant camps. Bristol returned to the camps with author John Steinbeck. The photographs Bristol took during those trips would later be used to cast the movie “The Grapes of Wrath.”Thirty-seven of Bristol’s “Grapes of Wrath” photographs and 44 never-before-exhibited Depression-era photographs by Lange will be on display as the Ventura County Museum of History & Art presents a double exhibition, “Insight and Compassion: Photographs by Dorothea Lange” (organized by the Museum and Focus on the Masters) and “A Journey Shared: Photographs by Horace Bristol (on loan to the Museum from the National Steinbeck Center), September 11 through November 28, 2004.“These Bristol and Lange photographs, literally showing the human face of the Depression in California, rank among the great landmarks in the history of photography,” said Anne Graumlich, Museum curator. “We’re grateful to Focus on the Masters for sharing the Elmer E. Lore, Sr. Memorial Collection of Dorothea Lange photos. Added to the Bristol photographs, they will create an extraordinary exhibition.”
