In 1916 Strand made a series of candid street portraits with a handheld camera fitted with a false lens attached to its side, allowing him to point the camera in one direction while actually taking the photograph in another. This seminal image of a street peddler was published in 1917 in Alfred Stieglitz's magazine Camera Work. It immediately became an icon of the new American photography, which integrated the humanism of social documentation with the boldly simplified forms of modernism. This large platinum print is the only known vintage exhibition print of this image.
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Inscription: Signed and inscribed in pencil on print, verso, bottom right: "-Paul Strand- // -1916-"; signed and inscribed in pencil on mount, recto, bottom right: "-Paul Strand-1916-"; inscribed in pencil in unknown hand, verso, center left: "Strand, Paul // 314 West 83rd St. // "Blind" 1916 // Platinotype"
Paul Strand; Alfred Stieglitz
This print was made from an enlarged negative. There is a 0.2 - 0.8 cm. black border surrounding the image which was included in the image size dimensions. In Camera Work, No.49/50, June 1917, the photograph was reproduced with the title " Photograph - New York". The text on page 36 states: "The original prints are 11 x 14"
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry, a non-invasive method for elemental analysis, confirmed that the image material for this print is platinum. (See also Barro in References)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Daguerreotypes and Photographs (Centenary of the Invention of Photography)," November 4–December 7, 1939.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz," May 18–July 16, 1978.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Faces from the Collection," January 1–May 1, 1987.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography," May 7, 1989–July 30, 1989.
Art Institute of Chicago. "On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography," September 16, 1989–November 26, 1989.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography," December 21, 1989–February 25, 1990.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Johnson Gallery, Selections from the Collection 2," May 4–October 3, 1993.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Paul Strand: Circa 1916," June 19, 1998–September 15, 1998.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries," January 28, 2001–April 22, 2001.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "New York New York," May 7–September 15, 2002.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand," November 8, 2010–April 10, 2011.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making The Met, 1870–2020," August 29, 2020–January 3, 2021.
Stieglitz, Alfred, ed. Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly 49–50 (June 1917). pl. III.
Tompkins, Calvin. Paul Strand: Sixty Years of Photographs. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1976. no. 37.
Naef, Weston J. The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978. no. 520.
Greenough, Sarah. On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography. 1st ed. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1989. pl. 195.
Hambourg, Maria Morris. Paul Strand: Circa 1916. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998. no. 47.
Phillips, Lisa. The American Century: Art & Culture, 1900–1950. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1999. p. 88.
Hambourg, Maria Morris, Doug Eklund, Mia Fineman, and Jeff L. Rosenheim. Walker Evans. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. fig. 15.
Greenough, Sarah, ed. Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. 1st ed. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 2000. pl. 83.
Barro, Lisa. "The Deterioration of Paul Strand's Satista Prints." Topics in Photographic Preservation 10 (2003). pp. 37–54.
Wigoder, Meir. "Paul Strand's New York Portraits: Private Eye-Public Space." History of Photography 27, no. 4 (Winter 2003). p. 351.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. p. 443.
Paul Strand (American, New York 1890–1976 Orgeval, France)
1933, printed 1940
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