[Teenager with Sleeping Child, Linefork, Kentucky]

1930–1934

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

20.3 × 15.2 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-664653

Doris Ulmann’s unlikely composition juxtaposing the darkness of a log cabin interior with unorthodox lighting and a confused sense of exterior space, this "discovered" moment between an exhausted toddler and a teenage girl (perhaps the child’s mother or sister) is a remarkably sensitive depiction of innocent trust and the maternal impulse. Its realism contrasts sharply with Pictorialist Gertrude Kasebier's (1852-1934) more academic portrayals of the mother-and-child theme ([87.XM.138](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/62200/gertrude-kasebier-gertrude-o'malley-with-infant-son-charles-american-1900/)) and foreshadows the documentary style of later New Deal photographers, such as Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), who reported on the human element of the Great Depression (see [2001.51.2](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/130783/dorothea-lange-dust-bowl-refugees-reach-a-promised-land-california-a-family-unit-in-the-flight-from-drought-american-1936/), [2001.51.5](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/130786/dorothea-lange-destitute-pea-pickers-california-american-march-1936/), and [98.XM.162](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/125690/dorothea-lange-huma…