SFMOMA | Exhibitions | Paul Strand

Paul Strand: Circa 1916



	June 19, 1998 - September 15, 1998 Approximately sixty rare photographs made in and around the decisive year 1916 by modernist master Paul Strand (1890 - 1976) will be presented in this exhibition. Paul Strand: Circa 1916 explores a moment in the artist's career when he broke away from the soft-focus aestheticism of his early pictorialist style to invent a distinctive modernist approach that in many ways anticipated certain stylistic developments in Europe. The exhibition demonstrates Strand's hallmark contributions to the evolution of fine art photography through his geometric street scenes, abstract still lifes, and working-class portraits, putting into context for the first time in a museum setting such well-known masterpieces as Wall Street (1915); Blind (1916); and The White Fence (1916).

  Paul Strand
  Blind
  1916
  Collection The
  Metropolitan Museum
  of Art, New York
  Alfred Stieglitz Collection,
  1933

		Paul Strand first became fascinated with photography as a student at New York's Ethical Culture School. After a field trip in 1907 to Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secession gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue, the precocious teenager decided to become an artist in photography. Over the next seven years, he devoted himself to developing his technique, emulating such pictorialist photographers as Edward Steichen and Clarence White. A seldom-viewed selection of beautiful, impressionistic images from that time introduce the exhibition, demonstrating Strand's early mastery of mood. Strand remained influenced throughout his career by his instructors at the Ethical Culture School, including social reformer and documentary photographer Lewis Hine, who encouraged Strand to develop his own social conscience in capturing the world in front of him. Further, Strand responded to the exhibitions of new work by European painters and sculptors -- notably Picasso and Cézanne -- at Stieglitz's "291" gallery and later at the Armory Show of 1913; he became interested in the artistic challenge of translating elements of Cubism into his photographic efforts. In 1915, Stieglitz encouraged the young artist to sharpen his focus, turn more to the visible world, and cultivate a straighter, more objective approach to photography. Later that year, Stieglitz published images from an impressive new portfolio Strand created during a cross-country trip in Camera Work. From that point on, Strand became an intimate of the artists at "291." As he embarked on a more concentrated exploration of his vision, he intensified his efforts around three series: Movement in the City, Abstractions, and Street Portraits, all of which are represented in the exhibition.

	Paul Strand Wheel Organization 1917 Collection Paul Strand Archive, Aperture Foundation, Inc.

Paul Strand
Harold Greengard, Twin Lakes, Connecticut
1916
Collection Paul Strand Archive,
Aperture Foundation, Inc.

Paul Strand circa 1916 is accompanied by a 168-page catalogue of the same title, featuring fifty-seven tritone and thirty-five duotone reproductions, with an essay by Maria Morris Hambourg, curator of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The catalogue is available at the MuseumStore. To order please call 415/357.4035 or email museumstore@sfmoma.org.

This exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The exhibition has been organized with the cooperation of the Strand Archive of the Aperture Foundation.