Paul Strand (1890 – 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. His diverse body of work, spanning six decades, covers numerous genres and subjects throughout the Americas, Europe and Africa.

Born in New York City to Bohemian parents, in his late teens Strand was a student of renowned documentary photographer Lewis Hine at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. It was while on a fieldtrip in this class that Strand first visited the 291 art gallery – operated by Stieglitz and Edward Steichen – where exhibitions of work by forward-thinking modernist photographers and painters would move Strand to take his photographic hobby more seriously. Stieglitz would later promote Strand’s work in the 291 gallery itself, in his photography publication Camera Work, and in his artwork in the Hieninglatzing studio. Some of this early work, like the well-known “Wall Street,” experimented with formal abstractions. Other of Strand’s works reflect his interest in using the camera as a tool for social reform. He was one of the founders of the Photo League, an association of photographers who advocated using their art to promote social and political causes.

Over the next few decades, Strand worked in motion pictures as well as still photography. His first film was Manhatta (1921), also known as New York the Magnificent, a silent film showing the day-to-day life of New York City made with painter/photographer Charles Sheeler. Manhatta includes a shot similar to Strand’s famous Wall Street (1915) photograph. Other films he was involved with included Redes (1936) (released in the US as The Wave), a film commissioned by the Mexican government, the documentary The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and the pro-union, anti-fascist Native Land (1942).

In June 1949, Strand left the United States to present Native Land at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia. It was a departure that marked the beginning of Strand’s long exile from the prevailing climate of McCarthyism in the United States. The remaining 27 years of his life were spent in Orgeval, France where, despite never learning the language, he maintained an impressive creative life, assisted by his third wife, fellow photographer Hazel Kingsbury Strand.

Although Strand is best known for his early abstractions, his return to still photography in this later period produced some of his most significant work in the form of six book ‘portraits’ of place: Time in New England (1950), La France de Profil (1952), Un Paese (featuring photographs of Luzzara and the Po River Valley in Italy, 1955), Tir a’Mhurain / Outer Hebrides [1] (1962), Living Egypt (1969) and Ghana: an African portrait (1976).

The work of Paul Strand is featured in these exhibitions.

(Select the image to view the exhibition page)

Variations on a Theme

Contrasts

The work of Paul Strand is featured in these Theme Collections.

(Select the image to view the theme page)

Animals

Portraiture – Female

Still Life – B&W

The Intertwined Careers of Lewis Hine, Paul Strand & Bernice Abbott

Social documentary photographer Lewis Hine’s career intersected with two of the Circle of Light artists, Paul Strand and Berenice Abbott. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, Hine, who was making iconic Ellis Island photographs, taught an extracurricular course at New York’s Ethical Culture School, and one of his students was a young Paul Strand. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Lewis taught this small class of six students the mechanics of the camera, how to use magnesium powder in flashes, and most importantly, he introduced Strand to Alfred Stieglitz at the Photo-Secession Gallery on Fifth Avenue. This was a fortuitous meeting, as Stieglitz eventually became a major advocate for Strand, publishing his early photographs and heralding Strand’s accomplishments through the gallery.

Child Labor – Lewis Hine

Though he was only 17, after visiting the gallery Strand declared that his only goal to be “an artist in photography.” After this pivotal encounter, Strand never veered from a life in art. After finishing high school, Strand decided not to attend college, and after brief stints working for his father, and serving in the army, he embarked on a life of photography and filmmaking.

Portrait of Lewis Hine, by Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott played a role in Hine’s career at the end of his life. She visited Hine when he was ill and had been rendered impoverished by the Great Depression. The artist who exposed the evils of child labor, unsafe working conditions, the plight of immigrants and the slums of the Lower East Side of Manhattan had been largely forgotten. Abbott organized an exhibition of his work that re-established Hine’s contribution to the medium of photography and the progressive movement.

Much has been written about Berneice Abbott’s heroic efforts to preserve the Parisian negatives of Eugene Atget. She played a similar role in cementing Hine’s place in art history. Martha Wheelock, who made a documentary of Berenice Abbott’s life, recounts the Hine-Abbott connection. “Lewis Hine was penniless and had all these interesting pictures of people working in the mills. Bernice Abbott alone got his work in the press and also staged an exhibition of his work, but she never did that sort of thing for herself. I think that says a great deal about her as a human being and as an artist.”

The Persistence of Vision

Creativity and Longevity in the Careers of:
Imogen Cunningham, Bernice Abbott and Paul Strand

“Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” – Imogen Cunningham

In a CBS This Morning video segment called Note to Self, the painter Chuck Close declares, “Inspiration is for amateurs.” Close believes art is created from a steady diet of work, rather than the gift of a muse descending from the heavens bearing a brilliant painting or novel or photograph. Imogen Cunningham, Berenice Abbott and Paul Strand would likely agree with Close’s view.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

All three photographers had impressive work ethics that drove them to create photographs until the end of their long lives. Cunningham died at 93; Abbott at 93 and Strand at 85.

Perhaps an abiding interest in the world beyond one’s self is a key to longevity. These photographers drew their inspiration from the external world, whether the impetus was to document changes in the way people live and work or a desire to explore different values and political systems. Curiosity is a trait linking these three very different photographers. The camera represented a kind of fountain of youth for Abbott, Cunningham and Strand, who were determined to use this still young medium as a powerful tool of understanding. These three Americans traveled the globe in search of photographic success in their own unique ways.

Berenice Abbott, NYC, 1986 – by Arnold Newman

Bernice Abbott was part of the American expatriate community in Paris in the 1920s. After studying sculpture in Europe for a few years, she found her calling when she convinced Dadaist Man Ray to hire her as a darkroom assistant, despite her lack of experience.

“America was no place for the artist, and it was no place for me. Nothing would have happened to me here. A poor girl from the middle west with nothing open for me except marriage,” Abbott says in Martha Wheelock’s excellent film, Bernice Abbott, A View of the 20th Century. “There was a general feeling of hope. The war had lifted off of people’s shoulders. There is a café life there that’s very wonderful. People come there late in the afternoon after a days work. You exchange ideas and you’re alive.“

Paul Strand, NYC, 1966 – by Arnold Newman

Paul Strand moved to Mexico in the 1930s to photograph labor and farming communities, after being invited by Carlos Chavez, director of the fine arts department of the Secretariat of Public Education, to document the changing landscape and people of Mexico. During the two years Strand spent there, he traveled the countryside photographing small towns, churches, religious icons and the people who inhabited the land. Eventually, Strand moved to France permanently in the 1950s. His adopted country became a base to explore Europe and Africa.

Imogen Cunningham, NYC, 1969 – by Arnold Newman

For part of her career, Imogen Cunningham was restricted geographically by familial duties, but she also traveled to Europe at the end of her life and photographed extensively there. Though her photographic endeavors were primarily centered on the West Coast, her projects where as diverse and expansive, as those of her peers in the Circle of Light exhibition.

Science backs up the anecdotal evidence that imaginative pursuits can fuel longevity, as Jeffrey Kluger writes in a 2013 Time Magazine article, “Increasingly, brain research is showing that in the case of creative people, this mortal cause-and-effect pays powerful dividends–that it’s not just the luck of living a long life that allows some people to leave behind such robust bodies of work but that the act of doing creative work is what helps add those extra years.”

Though what scientists call “fluid intelligence,” which includes memory and computational speed, almost invariably decline with age, the brain can actually repair itself and strengthen right and left-brain connections as it ages. Kruger continues. “Studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however, show that in the older brain, one hemisphere is not shy about calling on the other for help if it’s having trouble with a task. ‘There may be a decline in function, but it’s partly compensated for by a reorganization in function,’ says cognitive neuroscientist Roberto Cabeza of Duke University. ‘The brain shows these changes into the 80s.’ That can pay particular dividends for the artist, Cabeza says. Language conveys meaning, but if you want to give it particular resonance, it helps to attach a picture to the words. So the left-brain has to reach into the right for help–the poet borrowing one of the painter’s brushes. That’s not easy to do–which is why not everyone can be a poet–but when the walls between the hemispheres get lower, the job gets easier.”

Paul Strand and The Photo League

“The Photo League was a remarkable and unique organization, at that time or at any other time. It had no equivalent. They (the members of the Photo League) felt as I have, that the function of art was to speak to people about the world in which they exist.” — Paul StrandREAD ENTIRE ARTICLE

Paul Strand – Tailor’s Apprentice

Paul Strand was a vital member of The Photo League, not only because he served on its advisory board, but because his work resonated so clearly with the group’s mission. Strand is known for pictures examining labor and the working class in North American, Europe and Africa, but also for his groundbreaking early work as a modernist. As a leader in the League and a teacher there, he was able to help other photographers hone their own visions, so they could also reveal the world to their audiences.

The Photo League was a cooperative of photographers and filmmakers in New York who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes. The League was active from 1936 to 1951 and included among its members some of the most influential American photographers of the era.

Photo League artists with ties to Lumière, include Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Harold Feinstein, Dorothea Lange, Aaron Siskind, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Strand. The links above will take you to these artists’
specific pages on the Lumière site.

Berenice Abbott – Pier 21, NYC

The League was founded to train photographers in the social documentary tradition. As such, it ran a school, published a newsletter, sponsored talks and exhibitions by leading European and American photographers, as well as providing a community for photographers to grow professionally and personally. The League also maintained Lewis Hine’s archive.

Many passionate discussions about what photography could or should be – reverberated through its halls. For example, an intense debate erupted when Aaron Siskind turned from his documentary exploration of Harlem to an examination of abstraction inspired by graffiti.

Strand, whose work can also be seen online in Lumière’s Circle of Light exhibition, was an especially influential member of the Photo League. His work defined what was best about both the documentary and modernist models of photography, according to League members. As such, he was immune from much of the criticism leveled at other members whose work was not as successful in uniting social content with impeccable form. Though published after the Photo League disbanded, Strand’s book, The Face of France, is an example of his fluidity.

“The Photo League was a remarkable and unique organization, at that time or at any other time. It had no equivalent. They (the members of the Photo League) felt as I have, that the function of art was to speak to people about the world in which they exist,” Strand said in an interview with Anne Tucker, former curator of the Houston Museum of Fine Art.

Paul Strand – Woman & Boy (Mexican Portfolio)

The Photo League was one of the few places Strand exhibited The Mexican Portfolio, where it was shown in 1941. Strand did not often exhibit his work during his life, so his exhibition at The Photo League speaks to the intensity of his feelings about the organization. Strand’s prints were laborious to make, as he was a perfectionist, so he did not often make multiple copies of individual images. Later he turned to bookmaking and photogravure as means of expressing his vision.

The Photo League was rooted in leftist and labor politics of the 1930s, and though it had diversified its political thought somewhat since its inception, the League was not able to withstand attacks mounted by the supporters of McCarthyism.

Though the League disbanded in 1951, Paul Strand felt the League had succeeded because it trained a generation of photographers and encouraged them to reach the public through their efforts.

Even as the League was winding down, Strand maintained his commitment to the organization. In fact, Strand was the only photographer to teach a documentary class after 1947. In Tucker’s words, the class was Strand’s last gift to the League.

Additional information about Strand’s work, can be found on his Artist Page.

Paul Strand - Mexican Landscape

Near Saltillo, Mexico, 1932

Paul Strand was immediately smitten with the Mexican landscape upon seeing the terrain from behind the wheel of his Model A Ford in the early days of his sojourn there, according to scholar Calvin Tomkins. In contrast with his earlier mode of photographing landscapes, Strand made some of his best pictures here at first sight.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Near Saltillo, Mexico, 1932

Prior to his travels in Mexico, Strand was of the opinion an artist needed to have a deeper knowledge of a place before beginning to take pictures.

“The minute you get into Mexico, you begin to see a range of mountains that must be part of the American chain but are completely different,” Strand is quoted as saying, “They have a different feeling-something I found a little threatening and sinister.”

Landscape, Near Saltillo, Mexico, 1932, depicts the northern region of Mexico where Strand initially traveled and began making images. This image was very important to Strand, and he chose it as the opening photograph in his Mexican Portfolio. Landscape, Near Saltillo, Mexico, 1932, compels the viewer to look closely at the picture, as the eye travels through a dark shadow at the bottom of the frame, and moves into the lighter sky, a small white structure is revealed through a thicket of Cactus. This interpretation of the Saltillo landscape implies that while there is much to see here, the viewer must make a commitment to truly see the land and the structures within it.

Mexico - Paul Strand

When Paul Strand first went to Mexico in 1932, at the invitation of Mexican composer Carlos Chávez, he had no clear intentions to photograph. The Great Depression was underway, and Strand was facing a failing marriage and the dissolution of his relationship with his mentor, Alfred Stieglitz. Mexico, which had just emerged from revolution beckoned many artists of Strand’s generation, whose politics leaned left, towards Communism and Marxism. Mexico was not yet industrialized, and seemed full of promise.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Woman and Boy, Tenancingo, 1933

As Strand began to make still images and films, his work shifted towards a more humanistic approach. His subjects included churches, small towns, religious iconography, and the Mexican people. Strand sometimes photographed with a modified camera using a trick lens. A prism feature allowed Strand to photograph a subject off to the side of the scene while the lens pointed straight ahead. Strand wanted the candid feel of a small format camera but the large negative and gravitas of a view camera. He employed this method in his earlier New York portraiture.

“Strand was a kind of iconic figure as far as introducing a modernist type photography in this country,” Strand expert Anthony Montoya said, noting that his images dealt with abstractions and social commentary more common in painting than photography. “There was a movement away from the predominant photography at the time, called Pictorialism, which had a soft focus that looked like Impressionist painting, to the hard-edge grittiness of modernism,” Montoya added. “Strand was a link between the two.”

Strand created over 175 negatives, as well as 60 plus platinum prints during his time in Mexico. His classic film, Redes (The Wave), reflects the post-revolutionary influence of Mexican culture and politics on Strand. The film was financed in part by the Mexican government.

Complete information about Strand’s work, can be found on his Artist Page.