A Young Woman in Go to Town Dress, ca. 1925-30
Platinum print
20.2 x 14.9 cm (7-15/16 x 5-7/8 in.)
87.XM.89.78

Our vision of the rural South before World War II has been largely formed by public works photographs, including those of Walker Evans (related to-->> 169,184). However, a decade before the first of the government-commissioned photogra- phers arrived in 1935, Doris Ulmann had been there in her chauffeur-driven Packard limousine, all the way from New York. A student of Clarence White, Ulmann achieved a style that amalgamated Pictorialism with honest documenta- tion. The Appalachian hollows of West Virginia and Kentucky were particularly fertile regions for her work. "They all want to go and dress up," Ulmann said of the country women who were usually recorded in their workday clothes. This young woman somehow persuaded Ulmann to photograph her as she wanted others to see her-as stylish and alluring-like the models she would have seen in magazines.

related: web site -->>
• J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles