Getty Museum

Ranchos de Taos Church, New Mexico

Date

1931

Medium

Platinum print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

The church of San Francisco de Assisi in Rancho de Taos, New Mexico, completed in 1755, became famous in the twentieth century as an icon of pure form. A popular subject for many artists over the years, including Georgia O'Keeffe ([1887-1986](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/489156)), the site was photographed numerous times by Paul Strand. In this view the monumental structure of the adobe building is barely contained within the composition. Strand is interested in harnessing the energy of—or perhaps even instilling energy into—the arrangement by keeping it tight and omitting much of any outside context. Once again, the smallness of the print and the largeness of the subject are at odds with each other. By using the smaller size, yet filling the entire frame, Strand succeeds in magnifying the subject. In a sense it demands more attention from the viewer, who is forced to consider and ultimately reconcile the relationships between size and volume, much in the same way that the artist considered these elements when composing the picture. Indeed, Strand recounted in a lecture, presented in Chicago in 1946, that he was attempting "to see whether you couldn't get a very big feeling into a small thing." Viewed independently, and collectively, the New Mexico images reflect a major development in Strand's overall approach to photography, in that his previous methods coalesced into one distinct aesthetic ([86.XM.683.7](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106NR5), [86.XM.683.63](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104E71), [86.XM.683.81](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106NT0), [86.XM.683.82.1](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1096XB), and [88.XM.19](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106F5Q)). Applying the same principles he initially explored in his abstract [still lifes](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106NSK) from around 1916, Strand created compositions that explored the formal elements of the subject by using shape, mass, texture, and light as defining properties. In his repetitive photographing of the landscape and architecture, he essentially created a sense of the place, almost like his detailed nature studies from the 1920s ([86.XM.683.97.1](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1096TS), [86.XM.683.104](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106NTF), [85.XM.200](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106F4K)), only now his vision had expanded partly in response to the vastness of the subject. Originally published in _Paul Strand_, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by Anne M. Lyden (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 46. ©2005, J. Paul Getty Trust.

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.