Spring Ploughing
Place
Dust Bowl farm. Coldwater District, near Dalhart, Texas. This farm is occupied. Others in this area have been abandoned., 1938, Dorothea Lange, American, 1895-1965, silver gelatin print, 4x5 in., Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-fsa-8b32406
Thomas Hart Benton built his artistic reputation as a leading Regionalist painter by representing the American countryside. Whereas photographer Dorothea Lange’s photographs like this one documented the severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, Benton’s painting of blossoming trees in
Spring Ploughing provided a popular, optimistic counterpoint to the harsh realities of the period.