Dorothea Lange’s greatest achievements lie in the photographs she took during the Depression. They made an enormous impact on how millions of ordinary Americans understood the plight of the poor in their country, and they have inspired generations of campaigning photographers ever since.
In both her photographs as well as her films, Levitt created objects of fascination drawn from the seemingly mundane reality of everyday life. Transforming scenes and subjects into performances that flirted with the surreal, the intimate moments captured in her work spoke to the wonders of the human condition.
Cindy Sherman epitomizes the 1980s technique of “image-scavengering,” and “appropriation” by artists seeking to question the so-called truth potential of mass imagery and its seductive hold on our individual and collective psyches.
More important than the impact her diverse work has on the art market is its influence on other artists and movements, which spans generations. To this day, she represents herself as a lone wolf most comfortable with being known as independently avant-garde.
Since the discovery of her work around the time of her passing in 2009, Maier’s photographs have been made available to public viewers through many exhibitions and books. To the next generation of street photographers, Maier’s work provides an historical example of the way in which everyday scenarios can be imbued with a particular aesthetic power, and that through thoughtful framing and composition, the photographer might then find a way of using their camera to capture something of the psychological space of their subjects.
In the 1980s, many women artists felt their careers were precarious enough that they could not succeed as artists and fight the feminist battle too. The Guerrilla Girls proved them wrong. They succeeded in transforming the relationship between art and politics. They made activism seem not only acceptable, but vital to full participation in the art world.
Cahun’s artistic work, diverse personae, and unusual personal life have made Cahun a figure of inspiration and interest for many later artists. The gender-shifting self-presentation, and non-heterosexual relationship make Cahun important to homosexual activists and Feminism-lovers alike. Furthermore, Cahun’s use of photography in self-portraiture sees the beginnings of an important emerging tradition among non-male artists.
Cunningham has been called the “Grandmother of Photography” for her seminal role in popularizing the medium in its early years and for successfully moving the practice into the realm of fine art.
As her biographer Carolyn Burke states, “to this day, her life inspires features in the same glossy magazines for which she posed…this approach turns the real woman in to a screen onto which beholders project their fantasies”, and further perpetuates the legend of Lee Miller as an “American free spirit wrapped in the body of a Greek goddess”.
Lorna Simpson’s interrogation of race and gender issues with a minimal, sophisticated interplay between art and language has made her a much respected and influential figure within the realms of visual culture.