PAUL STRAND

(1890 - 1976)

An important figure in 20th century American photography, Strand was born in New York City. Became interested in photography under the influence of Lewis Hine who introduced Strand to Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo Secession Gallery in 1907. After graduating from school and a brief European trip, he began to develop his style as a photographer, exhibiting at the New York Camera Club and the London Salon. He developed a close relationship with Stieglitz and moved into a more sharp-focus style including abstracted still-lifes. His work was published in Camera Work and Stieglitz gave Strand a one person exhibition at the 291 gallery. Strand did some motion picture work after his stint in the Army during WW I, including a short film he collaborated with Charles Sheeler--Mannahatta. Strand was a political activist in the 1930’s, he traveled to the Soviet Union where he met Sergei Eisenstein and other key Russian avant-garde artists. He worked on the film, The Plow that Broke the Plains in the U.S. While in Mexico he gathered images for The Mexican Portfolio, published with hand-pulled gravures in 1940. By 1943 he stopped film production and returned to still photography. He received a one person exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1945. Several books were published of his photographs of travels in the 1950’s and 1960’s through France, Italy, Egypt, Ghana. A major retrospective was presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1971 and a two-volume monograph was published by Aperture. Another major retrospective was organized by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1973. He died after a long illness in 1976 in Orgeval, France. He was a major force of photographic modernism.