Kansas Veterinarian at Work: A Portrait by Tom Mohr

Over a span of twelve years, Tom Mohr followed Dr. Lee Penner with his camera, as the large animal veterinarian made his rounds among family farms in Kansas. What emerges from this photographic adventure is a multifaceted representation of contemporary Kansas farm life, as seen through such routine tasks as calf deliveries and such dramatic events as a nighttime necropsy. Mohr's photographs challenge his viewers to appreciate Kansas and its farmers with fresh eyes, expanding into contemporary times the movement of Regionalism started in the 1930s by John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton, and Grant Wood. See through Mohr's camera the grandeur of a vast field with a lone red barn, the quirky charm of the veterinarian's mud-encrusted van, and the strong bonds nurtured by a doctor and his community.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.