Background
Lange was born on June 6, 1853 in Hoboken, New Jersey to German immigrants Albert Clement and Emma (Leischhardt) Fahrenberg. His father was a portrait painter.
Lange was born on June 6, 1853 in Hoboken, New Jersey to German immigrants Albert Clement and Emma (Leischhardt) Fahrenberg. His father was a portrait painter.
His work is typically credited as "O.V. Lange". The Fahrenbergs were constantly on the move, showing up in New Orleans during the 1860 census and in Texas for the 1870 census. In the 1870s, Oscar moved to San Francisco and adopted the surname "Lange" while working with Ernest West. Newth making stereographs.
In the 1880s, he opened his own studio and gallery on Market Street, moving to Montgomery Street by the 1890s.
His residence by this time was across the Bay in Berkeley, California. Lange"s most widely-photographed subjects were architectural and included structures in San Francisco, Oakland, the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, and the downtown section of Berkeley.
He also photographed the workers of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroad shops in Sacramento, California. Lange never married. He died in Berkeley on December 9, 1913 from tuberculosis.
Although not a member of the faculty of the University of California, he did work on a number of projects for the University including some astronomical photography at the Lick Observatory.