Paul Strand - The Formative Years 1914 - 1917

New York. The Aperture Foundation. 1983. Plates laid loose into sand linen cloth Portfolio which is further encased in a like linen Solander box. Gilt titled morocco Title Label inset to front cover of box. Tall Folio. 17" x 21 This Edition Limited to 300 numbered copies of which this is #120. Portfolio is accompanied by a Text Folio by noted photography critic Ben Lifson and Michael E. Hoffman, former Executive Director of Aperture and bears the stamp of the Paul Strand Archive and Limitation Colophon. Illustrated by 10 hand-pulled, dust-grain photogravures by Paul Strand made from the original glass plates in 1973. Printed by master photogravure printer Jon Goodman,these works were the subject of a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in February 1998. The collection is comprised by :Still Life, Pear and Bowls, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 10" X 11 1/4"Hudson River Pier, New York, 1914Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 9 1/4" X 12 1/4"City Hall Park, New York, 1915Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 13 1/8" X 6 1/4"Fifth Avenue, New York, 1915Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 12 1/4" X 8"Yawning Woman, New York, 1916Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 12 1/2" X 9 1/2"Man, Five Points Square, New York, 1916Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 9 1/2" X 10 1/4"From the Viaduct, 125th Street, New York, 1915Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 10" X 12 7/8"Railroad Sidings, New York, 1914Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 12 1/2" X 9 1/2"From the El, New York, 1917Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 12 3/4" X 9 1/8"Abstraction, Porch Shadows, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916Paper Size 20" X 16"Image Size 13" X 9 1/8" In the earlier years of his formidable career, Paul Strand (1890–1976) was befriended and mentored by Alfred Stieglitz. A fierce proponent of modern art in America, Stieglitz’s infamous 291 Gallery on Fifth Avenue was the first to champion the avant-garde of European and American art and photography. His stewardship of Strand had a profound effect, cultivating in Strand one of the greatest modernist photographers of the era. Aperture has drawn some of his most notable images for this portfolio from the Paul Strand Archive; they include City Hall Park, New York, 1915; From the El, New York, 1917; and Yawning Woman, New York, 1916.Describing Strand’s oeuvre, Stieglitz said: “In the history of photography there are but few photographers who, from the point of view of expression, have really done much work of any importance. And by importance we mean work that has some relatively lasting quality, that element which gives all art its real significance. . . . The work is brutally direct. Devoid of any flim-flams; devoid of trickery and any ‘ism,’ devoid of any attempt to mystify an ignorant public.” A Very Fine, Pristine, As New copy.