The White Fence

1915

Turns to abstract photography

In 1915 Strand makes more and more abstract photographs; these formal experiments, such as “Wall Street”, give rise to the direction later called “straight photography”. Stieglitz, who backed the young photographer, printed his pictures in Camera Work, whose last double issue was devoted entirely to Strand.

21 January 1922

Married: Rebecca Salsbury James

1936

Helps found the Photo League

Strand is one of the founders of the Photo League, a cooperative of photographers that between 1936 and 1951 campaigned for social reform and for using art to promote social and political causes. He and Elizabeth McCausland were particularly active in it, he himself something of an elder statesman; Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall also contributed to the League’s publication, Photo News.

1946

Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art in New York holds a large retrospective of Strand’s work, spanning documentary photography, portraits, landscapes, plants, architecture, industrial sites and machines.

June 1949

Leaves the United States and stays in France

In June 1949 Strand travels to present “Native Land” at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and, unwilling to tolerate the growing McCarthyism, stays in France and never returns to the United States. He spends the last 27 years of his life in Orgeval (Yvelines), never learning French; declassified files later showed that security services monitored him closely.

31 March 1976

Died