Wall Street

Wall Street is a platinum palladium print photograph by the American photographer Paul Strand taken in 1915. There are currently only two vintage prints of this photograph with one at the Whitney Museum of American Art (printed posthumously) and the other, along with negatives, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This photograph was included in Paul Strand, circa 1916, an exhibition of photographs that exemplify his push toward modernism. It depicts a scene of everyday life in Manhattan's Financial District. Workers are seen walking past the J.P. Morgan & Co. building in New York City on the famous Wall Street, from which the photograph takes its name. The photograph is famous for its reliance on the sharpness and contrast of the shapes and angles, created by the building and the workers, that lead to its abstraction. This photograph is considered to be one of Strand's most famous works and an example of his change from pictorialism to straight photography. Strand moved from the posed to portraying the purity of the subjects. It is one of several images that stand as marks of the turn to modernism in photography. Background In 1907, as a young teen, the artist, Paul Strand, enrolled in New York's Ethical Culture Fieldston School. There, Strand was under the tutelage of documentary photographer Lewis Hine. Hine introduced Strand to the modernist photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz was heavily influential in the art world at the time, pushing for photography to be considered an art form and opening his own gallery, the 291 Gallery, with another influential photographer Edward Steichen, to promote modernist art. Stieglitz's colleagues were striving to receive acceptance for photography as a form of art. Stieglitz would become a mentor and artistic comrade of Strand, with both influencing each other for the rest of their careers. With Stieglitz's influence, Strand explored the pictorialist style, creating works with soft focus, and posed scenes. Photographs aimed to look like paintings. Around 1915, Strand and Stieglitz sought to change their aesthetics and made the march toward straight photography. Stieglitz pushed Strand to involve real-life subjects and less manual manipulation of the print and utilized the style that was innate to the methods and materials of photography. Strand interpreted this request from Stieglitz and created this new style that incorporated high contrasts, clean lines, and emphasis on shape.