The CéTàVOIR association, which organizes the renowned ImageSingulières photography festival in France's Cévennes region, is presenting a major exhibition featuring the work of three legendary American photographers: Edward S. Curtis, Dorothea Lange, and Ansel Adams. The exhibition explores a pivotal chapter in modern American history from 1900 to 1945, examining themes of cultural documentation, social justice, and wartime injustice through the lens of these master photographers.

The organizers believe this is an opportune time to revisit this significant period in American history, given current global events. They have selected three of America's greatest photographers to illustrate the complex social and political landscape of the era. The exhibition showcases Edward S. Curtis, who dedicated his life to documenting Native American culture during a time when indigenous peoples and their traditions faced existential threats. It also features Dorothea Lange, who was invited to participate in the groundbreaking Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography project and created some of the most iconic images of the Great Depression of 1929. Finally, the show presents Ansel Adams in an unusual context - not as the celebrated landscape photographer he would become, but documenting the controversial internment of Japanese Americans in California during World War II.

The exhibition opens with one of the most fascinating photographic adventures of the first half of the twentieth century: Edward Sheriff Curtis's famous documentation of Native Americans across the American West and North America. From 1900 to 1930, Curtis produced more than 50,000 images in what represents one of the most impressive examples of documentary photography ever undertaken. His work masterfully blended anthropology, ethnology, investigation, and documentation, all focused on a single, urgent subject. In this monumental life's work, Curtis - whom Native Americans called "the Shadow Catcher" - succeeded in capturing for eternity the beauty of a world that was vanishing forever before his eyes.

The exhibition continues with the powerful work of renowned photographer Dorothea Lange, whose 1936 portrait of Florence Owens Thompson has become one of the most recognizable images in American photography history. The photograph, better known as "Migrant Mother," became an enduring symbol of hardship and resilience during the Great Depression. Following the economic catastrophe of 1929, Lange was recruited by the Farm Security Administration, an American organization created by the Department of Agriculture to assist the nation's poorest farmers. She joined the FSA's photography section alongside other legendary photographers such as Walker Evans, documenting the devastating impact of the economic crisis on rural America.

Lange's iconic work on the Great Depression bears powerful witness to the living and working conditions of rural Americans during this dark period in the nation's history. Her photographs carry tremendous emotional force and were specifically intended to denounce social injustices and influence public opinion toward supporting government relief efforts. Through her lens, she captured not just poverty and desperation, but also the dignity and strength of ordinary Americans facing extraordinary hardships.

The final section of the exhibition addresses a lesser-known but equally important chapter in American history. During World War II, approximately 110,000 American citizens of Japanese origin were forcibly placed in internment camps beginning in 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. This mass incarceration represented one of the most shameful violations of civil rights in American history. In 1943, Ansel Adams made the decision to document the most famous of these camps: Manzanar, located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains north of Los Angeles, California.

The man who would later become one of America's most celebrated photographers took more than 200 portraits at Manzanar using a large-format 4x5 view camera. Beyond portraiture, Adams also meticulously documented the daily lives of the imprisoned families, capturing both their resilience and the harsh realities of camp life. Notably, the few landscapes that emerged from this body of work provide a glimpse of the artistic vision that would define his later career as America's premier nature photographer.

The exhibition, titled "Dorothéa Lange, Ansel Adams, and Edward S. Curtis: Three Perspectives on the United States of America from 1900 to 1945," runs through August 31, 2025. It is located at La Cure, 7 rue Tra l'église, 30770 Aumessas, and is open Friday through Tuesday from 3 PM to 7 PM, closed Wednesdays and Thursdays. More information is available at imagesingulieres.com. This remarkable exhibition offers visitors a unique opportunity to examine American history through the eyes of three master photographers who used their craft to document, preserve, and bear witness to some of the most significant and challenging moments in the nation's past.