In Focus: Paul Strand

Anne M. Lyden

Paul Strand (1890–1976) helped define twentieth-century American photography. Strand's photographs explore the abstract and dynamic qualities found in the natural world, search for humanity in portraits of people and places, and document the experience of life itself. Highlighting the development of the photographer's aesthetic from his early encounters with Cubism to his humanistic depictions of people throughout the world, this book presents nearly forty years of Strand's far-reaching and powerful work.

Included are commentaries on all of the featured works, an introduction, a chronology, and a transcription of a colloquium on the photographer's life and work.

In Focus: Paul Strand was published to coincide with an exhibition of the photographer's work at the J. Paul Getty Museum held from May 10 through September 4, 2005.

Anne M. Lyden is associate curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.