Paul Strand - Architecture Photographer | Filmographer

Paul Strand (1890–1976)


Paul Strand was an American artist, a pictorialist and photographer.During his studies in the 1900's he followed Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston's works. Through this he helped defining the early American Modernism.

Charles Sheeler , was the person helping Paul Strand experiment. Venturing into the world of film. By the 1930's he created a short movie Called Manhatta leading him to the career of being involved in documentary film making.

Till the end of his life he then produced high quality photography books. Moving back to France. His heart was still at producing architectural and landscape photography together with portraiture.



Paul Strand Quote  -

                           '' Treating the human condition in the modern urban context, Strand's        
                   photographs are a subversive alternative to the studio portrait of glamour and power. ''


                                    Paul Strand - Self Portrait wearing Browler hat 

In early 1915, his mentor Stieglitz criticized the graphic softness of Strand's photographs and over the next two years he dramatically changed his technique and made extraordinary photographs on three principal themes: movement in the city, abstractions, and street portraits.

 In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.Department of Photographs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art  [ online ] Available at http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pstd/hd_pstd.htm  - Last Accessed on 30 November 2013

Paul Strand Images

When he made this picture in 1917, Strand was living in his family's townhouse on West 83rd Street in New York. For twenty-four years he had seen the view from the back window. But it was only after the summer of 1916, when he had made abstractions from porch shadows in Connecticut, that he could see the backyards, sheets, and shadows this way. Once he had discovered the picture under his nose, Strand might have said, as did the sculptor Archipenko, "New York is a visible abstraction."