Tacoma Art Museum Presents Paul Strand: Southwest

The work of a seminal figure in the history of American photography comes to Tacoma Art Museum in Paul Strand: Southwest. The rural and exotic Southwest landscapes Strand captured in the early 1930s were embraced as a symbol for American identity and artistic independence. The exhibition opens January 27, 2007, and will remain on view until May 23, 2007.

Paul Strand: Southwest presents many images from the artist's estate for the first time. The exhibition includes dramatic landscapes, decayed ghost towns, the noble architecture of adobe churches, and austere portraits of his wife, Rebecca.

"Paul Strand: Southwest illuminates a meaningful and largely unknown chapter in the development of a major figure in American twentieth-century photography," said Rock Hushka, Director of Curatorial Administration and Curator of Contemporary and Northwest Art. "A handful of Strand's Southwest photographs have been previously published and studied, but this moment in this important artist's career is believed to be less significant in his artistic development. However, his experiences and work from these years redirected the course of life and art."

Along with Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Georgia O'Keeffe, Paul Strand formed the core of Alfred Stieglitz's New York circle. Like O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams, Strand also journeyed to the Southwest for inspiration, visiting for the first time in 1918. He returned to the artist colonies of Santa Fe and Taos several times following that first visit. The region became his laboratory, and his years there resulted in critical artistic growth.

Strand once summarized the perquisites for modern photography as "honesty, "¦ intensity of vision, "¦ [and] the photographer's real respect for the thing in front of him." His black and white photographs merged realism with abstraction and formalism with an American romanticism. His images spoke to the harmony of land and sky, a theme he pursued for the rest of his career. He began to shape his ideas of photographing a region in depth - a collective portrait that he would later expand to other locales, including Mexico, New England, Africa, and Europe.

Paul Strand: Southwest will include thirty-four vintage prints assembled from the Paul Strand Archive, Aperature Foundation, and other distinguished collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Princeton Univeristy Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The nationally traveling exhibition is organized by the Aperture Foundation. Local support is provided by The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. It is accompanied by a companion publication Paul Strand: Southwest, written by Rebecca Busselle and Trudy Wilner Stack. Tacoma Art Museum will be the only West Coast venue for this exhibition.

Tacoma Art Museum connects people and builds community through art. The museum serves the diverse communities of the region through its collection, exhibitions, and learning programs, emphasizing art and artists from the Northwest. The museum's five galleries display an array of top national shows, the best of Northwest art, creatively themed exhibitions, and historical retrospectives. In addition, there is an Education Wing for children, adults, and seniors with an art resource center, classroom, and studio for art making. Tacoma Art Museum is located in Tacoma's Museum District, near the Museum of Glass, the Washington State History Museum, and historic Union Station. -- www.tacomaartmuseum.org