Paul Strand | Abstraction, Twin Lakes, Connecticut

Abstraction, Twin Lakes, Connecticut

Artist: Paul Strand (American, New York 1890–1976 Orgeval, France)

Date: 1916

Medium: Silver-platinum print

Dimensions: 32.8 x 24.4 cm (12 15/16 x 9 5/8 in.)

Classification: Photographs

Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987

Accession Number: 1987.1100.10

Not on view

Description Object Information Related Objects Online Resources Video Audio

This picture is among the first photographic abstractions to be made intentionally. When Alfred Stieglitz published a variant of it in "Camera Work," he praised Strand's results as "the direct expression of today." Porch shadows and tipped-over tables are not intrinsically modern, but Strand's picture of them is, for it does not depend upon recognizable imagery for its effect, but rather on the precise relations of forms within the frame. This print, the only one Strand seems to have made from the negative, is on Satista paper, a wartime replacement for platinum papers.

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Inscription: Signed in pencil on mount, recto, lower right beneath image: "-Paul Strand. 1916-"
Provenance

[Robert Miller Gallery, New York]; John C. Waddell, New York (April 7, 1984)
Notes

John Waddell states that Van Deren Coke provided the following information: This is a contact print on Satista paper (made by the Platinotype Company during WWI as a substitute for unavailable platinum papers) from an enlarged negative. Susan Harris (Arts Magazine, April 1985) states that this picture was made with a British Ensign Reflex camera producing 3-1/4 x 4-1/4" negatives, here enlarged by projection to make a larger negative for this contact print.