Paul Strand
New York Backyard

New York Backyard

© Aperture Foundation, Inc., Paul Strand Archive

New York Backyard
New York Backyard
ArtistAmerican, 1890–1976
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • New York Backyard
Datec. 1920
Place depictedNew York City, New York, United States
MediumPalladium print
DimensionsImage: 9 5/8 × 7 5/8 in. (24.4 × 19.4 cm)
Sheet: 9 15/16 × 8 in. (25.2 × 20.3 cm)
Mount: 19 7/16 × 13 3/4 in. (49.4 × 34.9 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Morgan Garwood
Object number2014.174
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
DescriptionBeginning around 1916, Paul Strand abandoned the popular soft-focus style of “Pictorialist” fine art photography and explored a new, sharper, geometric aesthetic more closely allied to European modernism, which had recently been introduced to America.  To make some of his most abstract photographs Strand needed to look no further than his own backyard—quite  literally—as in this view from the window of his childhood bedroom on West 83rd Street in New York.  Despite his push toward abstraction, Strand was a humanist at heart, and it is not surprising that he chose to print this negative, rather than one nearly identical but without the neighbor’s dog lying in the sun.
ProvenanceMorgan Garwood, New York; bequeathed to MFAH, 2014.
Exhibition History"Photographs and Portfolios by Paul Strand," Art Institute of Chicago, 26 Feb - 24 April 1983; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 6 May - 3 July 1983 (LN:83.22)

“A Critical Eye: Mid-Century American Photographs from the Morgan Garwood Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 23–November 2, 2014.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscriptions in the photographer's hand on an old mount that has been removed:
bottom margin of mount left in ink "neg-1918 / Print 1920"[crossed out in pencil]
bottom margin of mount above signature in ink "To Bill and Yvonne / with all good wishes"
Signed on mount that has been removed, on bottom edge in ink below inscription "Paul Strand"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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