Dorothea Lange: Circa 1952

1952 was a landmark moment for Dorothea Lange, and a turning point in the history of photography. From her insider’s perspective, Sarah Meister, Executive Director of Aperture, will weave together stories about Lange, MoMA, Aperture, and the unruly medium of photography they were all seeking to understand.   

Presented as part of the Debra and Dennis Scholl Distinguished Speaker Series 

Photo by Naima Green

About Sarah Meister: 

Sarah Meister is Executive Director of Aperture, a nonprofit publisher founded in 1952 by a group of artists and writers (including Dorothea Lange). Sarah joined Aperture following more than twenty-five years in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, New York where she curated numerous acclaimed exhibitions including Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography (2021); Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures (2020) and Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction (cocurator, 2017). Her publications have considered Gordon Parks (2020) Frances Benjamin Johnston (2019), the 1967 MoMA exhibition New Documents (2017), Josef Albers (2016), Horacio Coppola and Grete Stern (coauthor, 2015), Bill Brandt (2013), and many more. She was the inaugural instructor for the online course Seeing Through Photographs, and co-director of the August Sander Project, five-year research initiative at MoMA/Columbia University. Sarah is the curator of Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter, which will open at the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin in April 2025, accompanied by an Aperture publication.