Sometimes, small is beautiful. And by any standard, the photography of Paul Strand (1890-1976), whose vast body of work is now on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the exhibition, Paul Strand, Master of Modern Photography, meets that standard. A maze of galleries are hung with row-upon-row of muted, sepia-toned, atmospheric prints. Turning each corner becomes a well-planned adventure, as work after work, covering the duration of his career, invites discovery and closer examination. The reward for the exhibition visitor can be seen in the painstaking effort that went into the production of each piece, and the discovery—just as Strand, himself, did—of the captivating the world of the particular. xxxxxx

No grand schemes here, no broad vistas or dramatic action (at least not overt). Strand devoted six decades of his career focusing his camera on the miniscule and seemingly ordinary, elevating the mundane to the ranks of dignified elegance and iconographic. A cursory walk through the galleries reveals glimpses of his most famous works such as Wall Street (1915) and Blind Woman, New York (1916), appearing like familiar way stations in an expansive narrative landscape of faces, forms, shadows and details. But to peruse the exhibit quickly is to miss the central point: Strand observed the world at the molecular level—in the face of a native villager, the tender folds of a mushroom, the tangle of shadowy forest undergrowth, or the inner workings of a machine. And he aspired for the same response from those seeing his work.

Recent acquisitions by the PMA have made it possible for a comprehensive presentation of this early twentieth-century modernist’s body of work to be gathered in one place for the first time in decades. It includes examples of his earliest experimentation with pure Cubist form and abstraction, such as, Abstraction, Porch Shadows, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916, to his late-life portrait series, gathered in various parts of the world. Strand’s photography was in a continuous state of flux and experimentation, as he tested the limits of his skill and the medium of photography and film, itself. Strand was delving heavily into the realm of photography-as-art at a time when the proven aesthetics of the film-based image were still some time off in the future.

Left:Abstraction, Porch Shadows, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916 (negative, 1950s print), gelatin silver print. Image and sheet 32.9 x 22.7 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-75. Gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980.

Under the influence of early documentary photographer, Lewis Hine, the young Strand took to the crowded streets of New York City in the early years of the new century, hoping for images that captured the crush and excitement of urbanity—a still-novel experience for most Americans. Early on, Strand developed a method of photographing his subjects that preserved a fresh, spontaneous look to his work. Fitted out with a prism attachment to his camera, he could point the device in one direction, but capture the image of an unaware subject elsewhere. The result was a degree of archetypal realism, intimacy and gritty familiarity that helped distinguish his work from others. Images such as Portrait, Washington Square Park, New York (1916), treat the human condition in the modern urban context; Strand’s photographs are a subversive alternative to the studio portrait of glamour and power. Even this title – as with most of his work – reflects a documentarian’s absence of sentimentality. Viewed as a dialectic, framing the human condition within the cold framework of the urban grid, a new kind of portrait emerged. Strand’s photographs are, as Sanford Schwartz put it, “akin to a social terrain—cityscapes that have faces for subjects.”

The hazy, atmospheric results of Strand’s early efforts fit the mode of pictorialized aesthetics typical of the early modern era, and with Hine’s introduction, earned him a coveted spot on the walls of fellow abstract photographer, Alfred Stieglitz’s, ‘291’ gallery. The period, 1915-20, according to show curator, Peter Barberie, “resulted in some of his most towering and recognizable photographs, including Blind Woman, and Wall Street, poignant images of a city and its people poised on the brink of a New Age. Simultaneously embracing the documentary tradition of Hine, and the Cubist abstractions of Stieglitz, Strand merged the two into a unified vision of what photography might become. Placed next to his contemporaries, Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, it is clear that Strand’s work places him at the front of the modern idiom.”

A photographer with an artist’s eye, Strand’s fascination with the urban environment was captured both in photography and on film—another recent invention that intrigued and challenged him. In 1920, he collaborated with the painter, Charles Sheeler, to produce a film essay about New York, itself. Titled Manhatta, a variant of the original Native-American name for the island, it was also the namesake of a Walt Whitman poem, from which the film’s intertitles were developed. Carefully divided into eight day-in-the-life segments, Strand and Sheeler attempted to worshipfully dissect the city’s pulsating rhythms (waterfront, commuting activity, street traffic, high-rise construction, leisure time, glowing sunsets over the harbor, etc.), all linked by Whitman’s narrative extolling the empowerment and virtues of life lived in the shadow of the urban ‘machine.’ In the film, Strand revisits several locations made famous by his still shots, and Sheeler converted scenes from the movie into paintings at a later date, to great acclaim. However, their film treatment of dwarfed human existence amidst the towering anonymity of the city—a flawed misreading of Whitman’s adulation of towering American individualism—would have had the great poet rolling in his grave.

The `20s found Strand caught up with the influential group of artists and cultural activists whose own work was helping reshape the American modernist idiom: John Marin, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O’Keefe—all part of Stieglitz’s inner circle. Strand’s sensibilities ran contrary to the others, however, as he was not a ‘joiner,’ preferring to work slowly, meticulously and with an emphasis on low-volume perfectionism. As a result, only a handful of some of Strand’s best known images are known to exist. Nevertheless, the influence of his colleagues can be found, and are presented in the PMA show.

Right: Rebecca, New York, ca.1923, Palladium print; 7 5/8 x 9 11/16 in.

For example Stieglitz’s intimate portraits of lover, Georgia O’Keefe, are hung in close proximity to close-up studies of Strand’s wife, Rebecca, Rebecca, New York (1923), where his portrayals appear to embrace variations of the same adoration and passion as his counterpart; Dove’s Precisionist machine paintings are echoed in Strand’s close-up photographs of his beloved Akeley Motion Picture Camera (1922), but seemingly as a short-lived imitative exercise in machine-as-lovingly-rendered art form; and while Marin was drawn to the “great hastening metropolis,” Strand structured his images on relatively slow movements, usually of a single person, as is seen in From the El (1915).

O’Keefe’s great outdoor abstractions of New Mexico’s landscapes and its peopled hit home for Strand, however—perhaps because of the inspiration this new-found community of time and weather-worn faces offered his creative impulse. Strand’s love affair with the Southwest is evident in photographs like Church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico (1931), and Christ with Thorns, Huexotla, Mexico (1933), part of his ‘Santos’ figure series. Following this transition out of the city to New Mexico, and the end of his first marriage, he would not turn his camera lens on city subjects again.

Left: Christo with Thorns, Huexotla, Mexico, 1933 (negative), c. 1940-45 (print). Gelatin silver print, image: 24.2 x 19.6 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Paul Strand Collection, gift of Lynne and Harold Honickman, 2013.

The 1930s saw a radicalization in Strand’s politics and his subject matter. Like so many other intellectuals and creatively-inclined Americans of the interim period between world wars, he turned to the cause of Socialism and its rhetorical aspirations for social equality. Curator, Barberie points out that “Strand became an artist of the Left. The Great depression unsettled him, with social inequities becoming a major concern. He had begun to read Marx while in New Mexico, in the `30s, before turning to film once again, documenting themes of labor unrest, union busting and worker autonomy. These films, which he approached with his usual meticulousness, consumed much of his time, between 1935-45.”

It was during this period Strand began work on a series of projects that would occupy him for the balance of his life: Portraits of Place. Working in conjunction with various authors, Strand conceived of a series of books which would document specific people and places where he felt a certain political ideal was alive and well— in the faces and personalities of its inhabitants. Strand was an artist who strayed politically, but not aesthetically. He embodied a contradiction: he spent the latter years of his life an avowed Communist (though never a member of the Party), but persisted in his belief in the American cause of freedom. He harbored the conviction, however, that democratic principles could best be found in communities located in other, more remote corners of the world.

In the late `40s, he chose a town in rural Vermont, portraying its residents through the intimacy of his camera lens in a series of warm, glowing, but startlingly simple images. Strand’s direct method of image-making can be seen in Toward the Sugar House, Vermont (1944), above, and War Bride, East Jamaica, Vermont (Helen Bennett), 1943, right.

By the early `50s, Strand’s communist views and political pressures at home drove him from U.S. shores. He moved to France, where he would live for the remainder of his life. The timing of Strand’s departure to France is coincident with the first libel trial of his friend Alger Hiss, with whom he maintained a correspondence until his death. Although he was never officially a member of the Communist Party, many of Strand’s collaborators were either Party members or active in related organizations. Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than twenty groups that were identified as “subversive” and “un-American” by the US Attorney General. De-classified intelligence files, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and now on file at the Center for Creative Photography, at the University of Arizona, reveal that Strand’s movements around Europe were closely monitored by U.S. security services.

From there, he would continue to produce his Portraits of Place, with some of his best-known images emanating from his photographic studies of the residents of the Italian village of Luzzara (1965), including that of The Family Lusetti (1953), where Strand captures the intensity and humanity of an Italian peasant family, with compositional elements that help rank it among the greatest images—photograph or painting—of the early modern period. And in another, shot in the small village of Accra, Ghana, he portrays an innocent young girl, Anna Antinga Frafra (1964), below right, eyes averted as she appears to dream of a better life made possible by the books precariously—and metaphorically—balanced on her head. Throughout this period, Strand insisted that his books should be printed in East Germany, even though this meant they were initially prohibited from the American market, due to their Soviet provenance.

Paul Strand died in 1976, just a year after publishing his Ghana, Portrait of Place. Best known for a mere handful of images, PMA’s rich trove of his complete portfolio and the current show, Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography, open the door to a new appreciation of an American artist. Throughout his life, Strand steadfastly adhered to a principle: that a cold machine called the camera—and the photographer behind it—could rise to the challenge of creating a grand subject out of the ordinary people and places of everyday life.

By Richard Friswell, Managing Editor

Learn more by visiting the Philadelphia Art Museum’s Web site at: http://www.philamuseum.org/

And go to ‘Visit Philly’ to see more of what the city offers art lovers at: http://www.visitphilly.com/

END NOTES – Caption detail:

1. Blind Woman, New York, 1916 (negative);1945 (print). Gelatin silver print, Image: 32.4 × 24.8 cm, sheet: 34.5 × 27.2 cm. The Paul Strand Collection, partial and promised gift of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest, 2009. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation.

Right: Martine Franck (Belgian, 1938-2012), Paul Strand Photographing the Orgeval Garden, 1974. Gelatin silver print, 20.1 x 30.5 cm. Courtesy Paul Strand Archive, Aperture Foundation.

2. Wall Street, New York, 1915 (negative); 1915 (print). Paul Strand, American, 1890 -1976. Platinum print, Image: 9 3/4 × 12 11/16 inches (24.8 × 32.2 cm) Sheet: 9 15/16 × 12 11/16 inches (25.2 × 32.2 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-1975, gift of the estate of Paul Strand,1980. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation.

3. Portrait, Washington Square Park, New York, 1916 (negative, 1945 (print. Gelatin silver print. Image and sheet 32.9 x 23.4 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1917-75. Gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980.

4. Church,Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, 1931 (negative); 1931 (print). Paul Strand,
American, 1890 – 1976. Platinum print, Image: 5 7/8 x 4 5/8 inches (15 x 11.7
cm) Sheet: 6 1/2 x 5 inches (16.5 x 12.7 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, The
Paul Strand Collection, purchased with funds contributed by Barbara B. and
Theodore R. Aronson, 2013. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation.

5. Toward the Sugar House, Vermont, 1944 (negative); 1944 (print). Paul Strand, American,1890 – 1976. Gelatin silver print, Image and sheet: 9 5/8 × 7 5/8 inches (24.4× 19.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Paul Strand Collection, purchased
with funds contributed by Barbara B. and Theodore R. Aronson, 2010. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation.

Left: White Fence, Port Kent, New York, 1916 (negative); 1945 (print). Gelatin silver print, Image and sheet: 9 5/8 × 12 13/16inches (24.5 × 32.5 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-1975, gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation

6. The Family, Luzzara (The Lusettis), 1953 (negative); mid- late 1960s (print). Paul Strand, American, 1890 – 1976. Gelatin silver print, Image: 11 7/16 x 14 9/16 inches (29.1 x 37 cm) Sheet (irregular): 11 3/4 x 15 1/16 inches (29.8 x 38.3 cm). The Paul Strand Collection, purchased with funds contributed by Lois G. Brodsky and Julian A. Brodsky, 2014. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation

7. Anna Attinga Frafra, Accra, Ghana, 1964 (negative); 1964 (print). Paul Strand, American, 1890 – 1976. Gelatin silver print, Image: 7 5/8 × 9 5/8 inches (19.4 × 24.4 cm) Sheet: 7 13/16 × 9 13/16 inches (19.9 × 24.9 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Paul Strand Collection, purchased with the Henry P. McIlhenny Fund in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, 2012. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation

Right: Young Boy, Gondeville, Charente, France, 1951 (negative); mid-to-late 1960s (print). Paul Strand, American, 1890 – 1976. Gelatin silver print, Image: 7 5/8 × 9 5/8 inches (19.4 × 24.4 cm) Sheet: 8 1/16 × 9 11/16 inches (20.4 × 24.6 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Paul Strand Collection, purchased with funds contributed by Thomas P. Callan and Martin McNamara, 2012. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation.