Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing and Vanessa Winship: And Time Folds, Barbican Centre, London

Two cowering children, a swaddled baby in dirty rags and a mother gazing desperately into the distance: Migrant Mother is a startling portrait of human suffering, hope, and desperation. Showcasing the devastating impacts of dust-bowl poverty in 1930s America, this harrowing portrait by Dorothea Lange became symbolic of the Great Depression. The face of Florence Owens Thompson has been ingrained in popular imagination since 1936; it remains one of the most celebrated portraits of the twentieth century.

Migrant Mother comes to the Barbican this summer as part of the first UK survey of work by documentary American photographer Dorothea Lange. With more than 300 objects, documentry film, field notes and letters on display, this largely chronological exhibition traces Lange's formidable career from 1919 to 1957. From her early, little-known studio portraits of San Francisco's bourgeoisie to her celebrated photographs of breadline queues and portraits of rural workers living in America's most dilapidated farms in the 1930s, Lange's empathy, superlative creative vision and desire to trigger reform are brought into sharp focus.

As part of the Art of Change programme, Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing, is staged alongside a solo exhibition of work by contemporary photographer Vanessa Winship. Winner of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award in 2011, Winship is best known for her poetic images exploring memory, identity and the symbiotic relationship between landscape and society. Her startling portraits situate her sitters in the political, social and economical contexts of their time.

Bringing together more than 150 works, many of which have never been seen before, Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican, sees this much overdue exhibition as 'a wonderful opportunity to introduce Winship’s photography to a wider public, as well as to showcase a great body of her powerful, and also deeply poetic work, from early prints to more recent projects completed for the exhibition'.

'This promises to be a stellar summer of two photographic greats' Alison continues. We certainly agree.

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