About This Lot
This impression was printed in 1976/77. The accompanying colophon states that Richard Benson printed the image under the supervision of Paul Strand. The colophon also is annotated "AP" and bears the blindstamp of the Paul Strand Archive, Silver Mountain Foundation (Aperture Foundation's name at the time of edition's production). All the platinum prints from this edition were printed by Richard Benson in 1976/77.
Paul Strand's Wall Street is one of the most recognizable and iconic modernist photographs of the twentieth century. It captures the movement of Wall Street workers commuting in the morning light past the monumental Morgan Trust Company building. The workers' small stature, and their reduction to silhouettes against the massively overwhelming structure in the background, allow for an empathetic reading of the photograph. There is clearly a complicated relationship between this developing new metropolis and the people who reside within it. Strand's Wall Street is an early example of the growing trend towards pure photography, also called straight photography, or the attempt to capture a scene as realistically and objectively as possible without the use of manipulation. This movement, championed by the Group f/64, became prevalent in the 1930s as a reaction against the soft-focus pictorialism which had previously been dominant in photographic community.
The work is accompanied by text by Milton Brown, 1983. The copyright date 1984 for the edition is printed and blindstamped on the colophon. The entire edition was ready for distribution in 1984.