Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
From the Viaduct, New York
Paul Strand American
Not on view
What to make of this strange and unexpected photograph by Paul Strand from 1916, the earliest work in the exhibition? It looks more like a Robert Rauschenberg Combine or collage from the 1950s or 1960s than an American work of art in any medium from the 1910s. Nearly twice the size of most photographs by Strand’s contemporaries and composed of velvety black tones and bright white highlights, it arrests the eye. Strand’s mentor and gallerist, Alfred Stieglitz, reproduced the photograph in the final issue of his deluxe quarterly, Camera Work, in June 1917. There, he described his protégé’s work as "brutal" three times in one short paragraph.
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