Getty Museum

[Young Boy, Gondeville, Charente, France]

Date

1951

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Around 1950 Paul Strand was nurturing the idea of photographing a village, where he might focus on the idea of community. This notion was inspired somewhat by the 1915 book _Spoon River Anthology_ by Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950). However, Strand was not hopeful that he would find his village in America at this time, due to the inhospitable political climate. He decided to leave the United States and settle in France with the photographer Hazel Kingsbury (1907-1982), who became his third wife in February 1951. Over the course of several years he traveled across France searching for the suitable village, only to discover that his pictures captured the whole country instead. Strand published a selection of these photographs in a book titled _La France de profil_. Issued in 1952, it was accompanied by the writings of the French poet Claude Roy (1915-1997). This was yet another opportunity to combine words and images, following the pattern set by _Time in New England_ (1950) with Nancy Newhall. Strand shunned the typical scenes of France that were often synonymous with the country, choosing not to focus on popular icons or places of historical interest. According to Roy's preface to the book: "Paul Strand did not enter French life as someone _coming from the outside_. . .. He simply sought to penetrate it." Adapted from _Paul Strand_, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by Anne M. Lyden (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 68. ©2005, J. Paul Getty Trust.

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