Paul Strand
Photography and Film for the 20th Century
7 March–17 May 2015
Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44 + 45
CH-8400 Winterthur (Zurich)
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11–18h,
Wednesday 11–20h
T +41 52 234 10 60
Infoline +41 52 234 10 34
F + 41 52 233 60 97
fotomuseum [at] fotomuseum.ch
Born in New York in 1890, Paul Strand was one of the great photographers of the 20th century. Drawing from a recent major acquisition of 3,000 prints by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this exhibition shows the evolution of the photographer’s work over six decades. Strand is revealed as a complex and contradictory figure: a stubborn aesthete, a committed leftist with communist sympathies, and a pastoralist motivated by a strong sense of social purpose.
The exhibition begins with Strand’s rapid mastery of the prevailing avant-garde styles of the 1910s and his growing interest in the camera’s capacity to record the world. He explored urban subject matter, including a remarkable series of close-up portraits of people taken anonymously on the streets of New York. Strand’s sense of modernity was informed by extensive travel; between 1932 and 1934 he photographed in Mexico, deepening his engagement with the politics of the left. Greatly affected by the world economic crisis of the 1930s, he took an increasing interest in filmmaking as a means of encouraging social change. Strand’s documentary films reveal the extent of his political commitments, but also the limits on his ambitions as the USA became embroiled in the Cold War.
After 1945, Strand devoted his energies primarily to the production of photo books, which offered him the opportunity to create complex portraits of people and place. The exhibition focuses on three of his most important books made in America, Italy and Ghana. Concentrating on the lives of ordinary people, Strand’s photography provides a moving testimony to the democratic qualities of everyday life.
Accompanying events:
Elisabeth Bronfen (University of Zurich) introduces the American context of Paul Strand’s photography
Tuesday, 17 March, 7pm
Jorge Ribalta (photographer, curator and author) on Paul Strand’s politics
Thursday, 30 April, 7pm
Samuel Burri (journalist) on Paul Strand’s portrait of Ghana
Tuesday, 12 May, 7pm
