Volume 45, Number 8 · May 14, 1998
Strand's Great Moment
By Henry Allen
Paul Strand circa 1916 1998, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 19-September 15, 1998.
an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 10-May 31,, Catalog of the exhibition by Maria Morris Hambourg
Metropolitan Museum/Abrams, 166 pp., $45.00 (paper)
Paul Strand made great photographs when he was in his twenties. He made good ones for the rest of his life. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put five dozen of the great ones on view in a show called Paul Strand circa 1916. In the catalog, its curator, Maria Morris Hambourg, writes: 'Although Strand was very productive for more than fifty years thereafter, his creativity never again burned with such intensity. This has never been adequately explained.' She does not try to explain it, and neither does the show. Instead, what it reveals is a moment of genius that makes you feel a little mournful at the end, as if you were leaving a summer house where you'd once more savored the quickness and possibility of youth.
Review, 2760 words
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