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View Full Version : Did Paul Strand have any students ?



Ken Lee
13-Nov-2006, 11:35
I have read that he had a darkroom assistant during later years, but I cannot recall reading about him having any students. Did he ever teach, or go shooting with others ?

MIke Sherck
13-Nov-2006, 12:41
I'm hardly an expert but Strand is one of the photographers whose images I greatly admire, so I've read what I could find about him, bought a bioraphical video, etc. Not college level research, to be sure, but there you have it...

I've never come across any mention of him teaching, taking on students, teaching photography or darkroom to pick up a few extra dollars, etc.

Mike

Mark Sampson
13-Nov-2006, 12:48
Strand was involved with the Photo League, which was a teaching organization among other things, in New York in the 1940's. Walter Rosenblum was one of his students; a look into "Paul Strand: Essays on his Life and Work" will tell you a lot more about this complicated subject. I suppose you could also count Chip Benson, who printed for him in the 1970's, who wrote a revealing and thoughtful essay about Strand's craft, published in the same book.

paulr
13-Nov-2006, 12:56
Besides Stieglitz?

Bill_1856
13-Nov-2006, 15:03
Good one Paulr! Two points.

Ken Lee
13-Nov-2006, 15:21
Besides Stieglitz?
I thought that Steiglitz helped to promote Strand, as he did for other photographers.

Would it be fair to say that they influenced one another ?

Mike Castles
13-Nov-2006, 16:55
There was that kid that played piano he met out in New Mexico....what was his name? something Adams.

Actually don't know of any source that metions students, but like others have said, admire his works.

Doug Howk
13-Nov-2006, 17:17
The DVD Strand: Under the Darkcloth is great intro; but I don't remember any mention of students. He had assistants as when he was doing films; and collaborated with people on projects such as Nancy Newhall on Time in New England.

Frank Petronio
13-Nov-2006, 17:33
Didn't he marry his assistant for wife #2?

tim atherton
13-Nov-2006, 18:12
Didn't he marry his assistant for wife #2?

and wasn't Rebecca Strand a "student" of Stieglitz'.. (and possibly Mrs. Stieglitz as well)

paulr
13-Nov-2006, 18:23
I thought that Steiglitz helped to promote Strand, as he did for other photographers.

Would it be fair to say that they influenced one another ?

It would, but I was being cheeky. Most have said that Stieglitz was Strand's mentor (both Stieglitz and Strand would have probably agreed).

But the record of photographs paints a bit of a different picture. Stieglitz was the great promoter and champion and theoretician of Modernism in photography, but it didn't show up in his own work for quite some time after it showed up in Strand's. Which suggests that while Stieglitz got the big ideas from Europe, he got the nuts and bolts of how to incorporate them into photographs from his young protege.

So as the kung fu movies say, 'sometime tha student become tha teachaaah ..."

Brian Ellis
13-Nov-2006, 20:39
and wasn't Rebecca Strand a "student" of Stieglitz'.. (and possibly Mrs. Stieglitz as well)

I've never heard that she had any relationship other than close friendship with either Stieglitz or O'Keefe though I'm not an expert on the lives of either. Strand and Rebecca divorced in 1933. She stayed in New Mexico after the divorce and remarried. She had some serious health problems and eventually committed suicide.

I