Paul Strand
1927
Fern, Early Morning Dew, Georgetown, Maine

Platinum print, waxed, contact print
9 1/2 x 7 3/4 ins (24.3 x 19.4 cm)
 
Sotheby's - Paris
9 October 2018, Modernism: Photographs from a Distinguished Private Collection, Lot: 6
 
Literature
 
Newhall and Strand, Time in New England, p. 141;
Aperture, Paul Strand: Sixty years of Photographs, p.101;
Aperture, Paul Strand: A Retrospective Monograph, The Years 1915-1946, p. 65 (there titled and dated Fern, Early Morning, Maine, 1927);
Galerie Zur Stockeregg, Paul Strand, p. 28 (there titled Fern, 'Early Morning Dew', Georgetown, Maine, 1928).
 
Catalogue note
 
"One of the most beautiful and most influential parts of Strand's heroic oeuvre is the series of close up nature studies that he began in the early twenties. These pictures are not merely descriptions of particular botanical or geological forms; they are, rather, miniature landscapes, organized with the same rigor and described with the same sensitivity to light and space that Strand would have accorded a grand vista"
 
John Szarkowski, Looking at Photographs
 
This exceptional print by Paul Strand is to our knowledge the only platinum print in existence of this work which for the photographer is considered as the finest prints. Gelatin silver prints are in the collections of Paul Strand Archive/Aperture, The George Eastman House, Rochester and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
 
LL/85213