Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1916 (Heft 48))

What one picks up in the course of years by contact with the world must in time incrust
itself on one’s personality. It stamps a man with the mark of his time. Yet, it is, after all,
only a dress put on a man’s own nature. But if there be a personality at the core then it will
mould the dress to its own forms and show its humanity beneath it.
In speaking of my art, I am referring to something that is beneath its dress, beneath
objectivity, beneath abstraction, beneath organization. I am conscious of a personal relation
to the things which I make the objects of my art. Out of this personal relation comes the
feeling which I am trying to express graphically. I do not avoid objectivity nor seek subjec-
tivity, but try to find an equivalent for whatever is the effect of my relation to a thing, or to a
part of a thing, or to an afterthought of it. I am seeking to attune my art to what I feel to be
the keynote of an experience. If it brings to me a harmonious sensation, I then try to find the
concrete elements that are likely to record the sensation in visual forms, in the medium of lines,
of color shapes, of space division. When the line and color are sensitized, they seem to me alive
with the rhythm which I felt in the thing that stimulated my imagination and my expression.
If my art is true to its purpose, then it should convey to me in graphic terms the feeling which
I received in imaginative terms. That is as far as the form of my expression is involved.
As to its content, it should satisfy my need of creating a record of an experience.
A. Walkowitz.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL STRAND
From March thirteenth to April third, Photographs of New York and
Other Places, by Paul Strand, of New York. These photographs were shown
at “291” as the natural foil to the Forum Exhibition of Modern American
Painters which was being held at the Anderson Gallery, New York, during
the same time. The Forum Exhibition was the most important large ex-
hibition of Modern Paintings held in America since the historic “Inter-
national” at the Armory in 1913. It consisted of sixteen “one-man groups.”
The artists represented were: Ben Benn, Thomas H. Benton, Oscar Bluemner,
Andrew Dasburg, Arthur G. Dove, Marsden Hartley, S. Macdonald-Wright,
John Marin, Alfred Maurer, Henry L. McFee, George F. Of, Man Ray, Mor-
gan Russell, Charles Sheeler, A. Walkowitz, William and Marguerite Zorach.
During the International Exhibition, Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs oc-
cupied the walls of “291.” “291” exhibitions are never exhibitions in the
ordinary sense, but are a series of experiments and demonstrations, all inter-
related. During the International at the Armory it was but logical for “291”
to show the Stieglitz photographs. Likewise it was the logical step in the
evolution of “291” exhibitions to show photographs during the Forum Show.
And to show pure photographs. No photographs had been shown at “291”
in the interim, primarily because “291” knew of no work outside of Paul
Strand’s which was worthy of “291.” None outside of his had been done by
any new worker in the United States for some years, and as far as is our
knowledge none had been done in Europe during that time. By new worker,
we do not mean new picture-maker. New picture-makers happen every
day, not only in photography, but also in painting. New picture-makers
are notoriously nothing but imitators of the accepted; the best of them
imitators of, possibly at one time, original workers. For ten years Strand
quietly had been studying, constantly experimenting, keeping in close touch
with all that is related to life in its fullest aspect; intimately related to the
spirit of “291.” His work is rooted in the best traditions of photography.
His vision is potential. His work is pure. It is direct. It does not rely
upon tricks of process. In whatever he does there is applied intelligence.
In the history of photography there are but few photographers who, from the

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