b'Images that might have seemed quaint or fromanother time are now, more and more, becoming areflection of our present reality.above:Henriette Kets de Vries leading a gallery tour for museum staff in left, bottom and above:Visitors in A Dust Bowl of Dog SoupMarch 2020, just days before the museum closed due to the pandemicscene in unprecedented ways. While these worksThe exhibition attracted a wide audience and were definitely not inconsequential, changing tastes produced many surprises, including correspondence in the 40s and 50s made them seem quaint and with the granddaughter of the woman pictured in dated in retrospect. Art critics focused on the latest the famous Migrant Mother photograph by Dorothea art trends and not works that reminded them of Lange. An unhappy surprise was the early closure the hard times of the past. It was not until the 60s necessitated by the pandemic. However, the museum and 70s that these works gained a new audience staff made lemonade out of lemons and was able to and the importance of the art program regainedcreate an ad hoc virtual exhibit extending the showappreciation.to an even larger audience. Curated by assistantIn addition to the prints, half of the works oncurator Henriette Kets de Vries with writing and re-display in the exhibition were photographs by Farmsearch by Sophie Poux 21, this exhibition could not Security Administration photographers, a small have been done without the generous gift of prints group, mostly from New York, who were hired by theby Gladys Engel Lang and Kurt Lang, which contained Roosevelt administration to capture rural America inan abundance of WPA works. The exhibition, and the 1935. Their work became significant in many ways.circumstances surrounding it, exemplify how great art While the photographs were originally intended asevolves over time, how we never stop learning from propaganda, the beauty of these images surpassedhistory and, most importantly, how to never take any-their original purpose and many came to be iconicthing for granted. artworks of the Depression era. These powerfulconnecting people to artphotographs provided the perfect complement to This exhibition was made possible by the Louise Walker the WPA prints. Blaney, class of 1939, Fund for Exhibitions.27'