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• Church, Truchas, New Mexico, 1931 © Aperture Inc. the Paul Strand Archive.
You’re never alone with a Strand
Paul Strand (1890-1976) was close to founding members of the Aperture Foundation, among them Minor White, Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams; Aperture magazine was first published in 1952. The Paul Strand Archive is held by the Foundation and this book appears as part of a hectic publishing programme for the non-profit organisation; the quality of reproduction, on heavy matt cream paper, is outstanding. A portfolio of 50 images - some well-known, some previously unpublished - precedes a ‘scrapbook’ of materials from the period: a collage of correspondence, snapshots, notes and images from other artists and photographers who, like Strand, had gravitated to the area. Strand was introduced to photography by Lewis Hine and met the influential Alfred Stieglitz early in his career, the latter organising the first exhibition of Strand’s work in 1916. The final issues of Stieglitz’ Camera Work - which ceased publication in 1917 - also featured the work. Stieglitz was to have considerable influence on Strand and was the reason he found himself in New Mexico - the North American Hoxton of the 1930s. Although the images in this book date from the early 1930s, Strand’s first visit to the region was in 1918 when sent there by Stieglitz to retrieve the flighty artist Georgia O’Keeffe (Sam Taylor-Wood?). During the three weeks they spent together it seems that Strand was as keen to hitch up with O’Keeffe himself as to reunite her with his mentor, although the matter was resolved when later she married Stieglitz. Strand married artist Rebecca Salsbury, who features regularly in his photography, from which we can see she was a more than passable body double for O’Keeffe. For the three summers of 1930-32 Paul and Rebecca Strand were guests of arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan at her Taos ranch in New Mexico, and it is from those visits that the photographs in Southwest come. Strand photographed the land and abandoned buildings, in particular the adobe churches and especially Ranchos de Taos, a fine example, also immortalised by Ansel Adams, O’Keeffe, Rebecca Strand and painter John Marin, as shown in the latter section of this book. The shot by Adams suggests that his tripod was about a foot to the left of Strand’s. As half the book comprises the notes, correspondence, snapshots and memorabilia from the period, this is for devotees of Strand’s life and times as much as his imagery. But the 50 plates are so carefully presented and printed that they alone are worth the asking price.
Paul Strand: Southwest, photographs by Paul Strand, text by Rebecca Busselle and Trudy Wilner Stack, published by Aperture, £22.00 (hb), ISBN 1 931788 46 4. Distributed in the UK by Thames & Hudson.
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