Documenting an ‘Age-Long Struggle’: Paul Strand's Time in the American Southwest

Haran, Barnaby

Abstract

This article examines the photographs that Paul Strand made in the American Southwest between 1930-32, marking his crystallization as a photographer of interconnected people, objects, and places. Using Group Theatre director Harold Clurman’s appellation of ‘historical documents’ for these photographs, I argue that Strand’s photography witnessed the fluidity of the nascent discourse of documentary. I situate temporality as a principle interpretative theme for interpreting his photographs, invoking the geological notion of ‘deep time’ to characterize his sustained examination of these symbiotic forms amidst the region’s rich topography. I explore the significance of his favouring of the earlier photographers David Octavius Hill and Eugène Atget, and explore his retention of outmoded apparatus and slow printing methods. I consider these factors in concert with his coeval political radicalization, concluding that Strand’s Southwest photography sacrificed the topicality of ‘social documentary’ to concentrate on, in Clurman’s terms, ‘man’s age-long struggle’.

Citation

Haran, B. (2020). Documenting an ‘Age-Long Struggle’: Paul Strand's Time in the American Southwest. Art History, 43(1), 120-153. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12472

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 31, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jan 22, 2020
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Feb 8, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 19, 2020
• Journal: Art History
• Print ISSN: 0141-6790
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 120-153
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12472
• Keywords: Documentary; time; temporality; South-West; photography; printing; struggle
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1285304
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14678365
• Contract Date: Feb 8, 2019