RENO, NEV.- The Nevada Museum of Art today opened two major exhibitions that celebrate the spirit of American resilience — Dorothea Lange: Seeing People and When Langston Hughes Came to Town. The artistic output of these two leading cultural figures in the 1920s and 30s conveyed the struggles and resilience of marginalized communities, shaped public consciousness, and advocated for social change during a pivotal era in America’s history.


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Dorothea Lange: Seeing People
April 12, 2025–February 15, 2026

Dorothea Lange reframes the famous artist’s work through the lens of portraiture, highlighting her unique ability to discover and reveal the character and resilience of those she photographed.

Featuring more than 100 photographs, the exhibition addresses Lange’s innovative approaches to picturing people, emphasizing her work on social issues including economic disparity, migration, and poverty. The exhibition includes one of her most famous portraits, Migrant Mother, which highlights the plight of migrant farm workers looking for work in California during the Great Depression.

Dorothea Lange: Seeing People is presented as part of the National Gallery of Art’s “Art Across the Nation” program that aims to share the nation’s art collection with museums across the country.

“The Nevada Museum of Art is honored to partner with the National Gallery to debut this major exhibition of Lange’s photography on the West Coast,” said CEO David B. Walker. “The Museum has had a longtime commitment to photography and artists of the American West, including Maynard Dixon, Georgia O’Keeffe, Anne Brigman, and Charlotte Skinner, making us the perfect host to these ongoing dialogues.”

“We are thrilled to bring some of the most excellent and beloved works from the nation’s collection directly into communities across the country as we commemorate the 250th anniversary of America,” said Kaywin Feldman, Director of the National Gallery of Art.

This exhibition is curated by Philip Brookman, consulting curator in the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art. The Nevada Museum of Art is the only West Coast venue for this exhibition.

When Langston Hughes Came to Town
May 3, 2025–February 15, 2026

When Langston Hughes Came to Town explores the history and legacy of Black writer and poet Langston Hughes (1901-1967) during and after the Harlem Renaissance, a period of African American artistic expression and cultural revolution in the 1920s and 1930s. Highlighting Hughes’ little-known travels to the Hoover Dam and Reno during the Great Depression, the exhibition includes works inspired by his Nevada travels, including never-before-seen archival photographs, ephemera, artworks, short stories, and original poems written by Hughes.

“It is an honor to curate this exhibition celebrating Langston Hughes's legacy through art, which also brings attention to his visits to Northern and Southern Nevada in the 1930,” said Nevada Museum of Art Associate Curator and Outreach Director Carmen Beals. “Hughes's writing about the joyous moments, struggles, and resilience of African American communities spans over 100 years, and his insightful words still resound today.”

This unique exhibition incorporates a range of artistic voices, including significant works by notable Harlem Renaissance artists such as Augusta Savage, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Beauford Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Norman Lewis, and Archibald Motley, Jr. Hughes’s lifework continues to be a source of inspiration for contemporary artists, including Isaac Julien, Kwame Brathwaite, Glenn Ligon, Benny Andrews, Deborah Willis, David Shrobe, and Gordon Parks–who pay homage to his enduring legacy through a range of media.



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