Born in New York to immigrants from Germany, Paul Strand was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was attracted to photography while studying at the Ethical Culture School under Lewis Hine. After graduation, he participated in Stieglitz’s Camera Club, published in Camera Work, and came to see himself as part of the emergent world of artistic photography. His photographic style characterized humanity in often neglected moments of urban life through street portraits, abstract cityscapes, and movement. Strand also produced films, notably his 1921 adaptation of Walt Whitman’s Mannahatta and his politically charged Frontier Films productions. After World War II he moved to Orgeval, France, and focused exclusively on photography.
This photograph is one of a series of street photographs that Paul Strand took in 1916, using a camera outfitted with a false lens pointed away from what was being photographed. This enabled him to…
This book is intended as a description of a “traditional society”—that is, a society that saw itself as based upon a body of knowledge and a set of values handed down to…
Chariots trampling enemies and burning city in drawing of late 8th century BCE Assyrian relief in Sargon’s palace in Khorsabad, Iraq. One of Sargon’s horse-drawn chariots, its driver holding a whip…