HANSEL MIETH (1909-1998) Cotton picker family around fire, California Great Central Valley. Silver print, the image measuring 13 1/4x10 3/8 inches (33.7x26.4 cm.), with Mieth's credit stamp on verso. 1934; printed 1980s
Provenance: This print was gifted from Hansel Mieth to Grace and George Schaub. Grace Schaub contributed an essay to the book The Heart Mountain Story: Photographs of the WWII Internment of Japanese Americans by Mamoru Inouye, and George Schaub was the Editorial Coordinator. The volume featured Mieth's photographs as well as those by her husband Otto Hagel. The two became quite close, and Grace gave a number of talks on the work and Hansel at colleges and a Japanese cultural society. In her sensitive and richly crafted introduction Grace quoted Hansel discussing her artistic output with her husband Otto Hagel: "Throughout our life together, Otto and I always had deep conversations about what was going on in the world, why we are here on earth, and what we could do to be better human beings and make the world a better place for us all. With whatever we could do, whether it was through a photograph, a painting, or an essay, we believed art should be a positive expression that has a use in life for people. For Otto and I, it was never simply art for art's sake."
