Paul Strand In Mexico

Already a respected photographer in the United States, Paul Strand lived in Mexico from 1932 to 1935 where he worked on Redes (1936), a film commissioned by the Mexican Secretariat of Public Education, and photographed the changing landscape and people of Mexico. Strand traveled the countryside photographing the small towns, churches, and the people who occupied the land. Twenty images were selected and published as a portfolio in 1940, titled Photographs of Mexico.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

Whether or not you go, Paul Strand in Mexico tells the story of the photographer's journeys through Mexico in the early 1930s. In search of a fresh start, Strand traveled to Mexico City in late 1932 at the invitation of Carlos Chavez, the eminent Mexican composer and conductor. The work he created during this key period reflects a time of intense productivity, creative renewal, and the evolution of Strand's foundational idea of the "collective portrait," in which he depicted a region through photographs of individuals, still lifes and studies of architecture and religious subjects.

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