Treasures in the attic *

Imagine looking through some forgotten files of your late father's and discovering a valuable work of art or two — or 50. Saturday's Ventura County Star has a piece on Elmer Lore, a Thousand Oaks man of 85 whose father had been a state assemblyman in the 1930s. Lore always thought the vintage photos with his dad's papers were of old cars; instead, they are images of the Depression in California by the great Dorothea Lange, whose work was the subject of a Getty Center exhibition last year. They are press prints of previously known Lange photographs, so Lore has not become a rich man. But they are a rare find. The newly found prints will go on display at the Ventura County Museum of History & Art in the fall, after two years of authentication and preparation. The photo above, made in the central coast town of Nipomo (as was Lange's most celebrated image of a migrant mother and infant) is from a nice slide show at the Star's site (free registration required) — it is shown full frame because this website won't be cropping Dorothea Lange.

* Monday update: More details in the L.A. Times