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Traces, Images and Fictions: Paul Strand in Mexico, 1932–34*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

James Krippner
James Krippner*
Affiliation:
Haverford College Haverford Pennsylvania
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This article analyzes an individual, a context, and an experience. The individual is the photographer and filmmaker Paul Strand, widely recognized and occasionally criticized as one of the great modernist photographers of the twentieth century. The context is Mexico from 1932-34. In these years, Strand worked in Mexico amidst state-led efforts to construct a “new” national culture following the social upheavals and military conflicts associated with the Mexican Revolution. The experience was Strand’s effort to create a visual record of Mexico documenting what he thought of as its unique character, while furthering its “revolutionary” transformation through photography and filmmaking.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , January 2007 , pp. 359 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2007 

Footnotes

*

The author wishes to acknowledge John Mraz as well as two anonymous reviewers for The Americas, whose comments greatly strengthened the final version of this article.

References

1 For the political/cultural dimensions of Strand’s move to Mexico as well as an analysis of his Mexican work, see John Mraz, “Ojos ajenos. Fotografías de extranjeros en México,” unpublished paper. For the overall context of twentieth-century photography in Mexico, see also Mraz, , “Photography in Mexico,” in Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography, vol. 2, ed. Warren, Lynne (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp 1033–1040 Google Scholar; Mraz, , Nacho López: Mexican Photographer (Minneapolis-London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003 Google Scholar; Strand, Paul: Essays on His Life and Work, ed. Stange, Maren (New York: Aperture, 1990)Google Scholar; Rosenblum, Naomi, A World History of Photography, Third Edition (New York, London, Paris: Abbeville Press, 1997, orig. 1984), pp. 438–440 Google Scholar; Oles, James, South of the Border: Mexico in the American Imagination, 1914-1947 (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), p. 93 Google Scholar; Fernández, Horacio, “Paul Strand (y Anton Bruehl),” in Albiñana, Salvador and Fernández, Horacio, eds., Mexicana: Fotografía Moderna en México, 1923-1940 (IVAM Institut Valencia d’Art Modem, 1998), pp. 195–215 Google Scholar; and Debroise, Olivier, Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico, trans. Sá Rego, Stella de (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001, orig. 1994), pp. 5, 134-138.Google Scholar

2 Benjamin, Thomas, La Revolución: Mexico’s Great Revolution as Memory, Myth and History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vaughan, Mary Kay, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants and Schools in Mexico, 1930-1940 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1997), esp. pp. 25–46 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Craven, David, Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910-1990 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 25–73 Google Scholar; Dawson, Alexander S., “From Models for the Nation to Model Citizens: Indigenismo and the ‘Revindication’ of the Mexican Indian, 1920-1940,” Journal of Latin American Studies 30:2 (May, 1998), pp. 279–308 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palacios, Guillermo, “Postrevolutionary Intellectuals, Rural Readings and the Shaping of the ‘Peasant Problem’ in Mexico: El Maestro Rural, 1932-1934, Journal of Latin American Studies 30:2 (May, 1998), pp. 309–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 The figure of “approximately 175” negatives was given in a personal communication with Anthony Montoya, Archivist, Paul Strand Archive. Naomi Rosenblum notes “60 images, printed in platinum.” Rosenblum, Naomi, “Strand/Mexico,” in México Through Foreign Eyes/Visto por ojos extranjeros, ed. Naggar, Carole and Ritchin, Fred (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993), p. 27 Google Scholar. trand’s, Paul Photographs of Mexico (New York: Virginia Stevens, 1940)Google Scholar is quite rare. More readily available is Strand, Paul, The Mexican Portfolio (New York: Da Capo Press, 1967).Google Scholar

4 Paul Strand Archive, Aperture Foundation, Millerton, N.Y. and Lakeville, Conn. The citations in this paragraph are from a microfiche copy of the Strand Archive of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, listed as AG 17:1/1. “Publications: Mexican Portfolio, 1940.”

5 Ibid.

6 A substantial defense of Strand’s realism is Mike Weaver, “Dynamic Realist,” in Stange, ed., Paul Strand, pp. 197-207.

7 An accessible guide is Barrett, Terry, Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images, 3rd ed. (Mayfield: Mountain View, California, Toronto, London, 2000), esp. pp. 96–139 Google Scholar. Various lines of postmodernist critique include Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Howard, Richard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), esp. p. 76 Google Scholar. Sontag, Susan, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1977)Google Scholar. See also Benjamin’s classic, Walter “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations, ed. Arendt, Hannah (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), pp. 217–251 Google Scholar. Cadava, Eduardo, Words of Light: Theses on the Photography of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. Schwartz, Vanessa R., “Walter Benjamin for Historians,” American Historical Review 106, no. 5 (December, 2001), pp. 1721–1743 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of the impact of digital technology on photographic objectivity, see John Mraz, “What’s documentary about photography?: From directed to digital photojournalism,” http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/mraz/mraz01.html, parts 1-8.

8 On biography and images, see Painter, Nell Irvin, “Ut Pictura Poesis; or The Sisterhood of the Verbal and Visual Arts” in Writing Biography: Historians and Their Craft (Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), pp. 103–131 Google Scholar; Coronil, Fernando, “Seeing History,” Hispanic American Historical Review 84:1 (February, 2004), pp. 1–4 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clair, William St., “The Biographer as Archaeologist,” in Mapping Lives: The Uses of Biography, ed. France, Peter and Clair, William St. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 219–234.Google Scholar

9 Mraz, “Ojos ajenos.”

10 Delpar, Helen, The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican: Cultural Relations Between the United States and Mexico, 1920-1935 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Hart, John Mason, Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico Since the Civil War (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2002), pp. 367–399 Google Scholar; Spenser, Daniela, The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920’s (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Schuler, Friedrich E., Mexico Between Hitler and Roosevelt: Mexican Foreign Relations in the Age of Lázaro Cárdenas, 1934-40 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), pp. 33–62 Google Scholar; Moreno, Julio, Yankee Don’t Go Home! Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920-1950 (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003), pp. 16–81.Google Scholar

11 Rosenblum, Naomi, “Strand/Mexico,” in Mexico through Foreign Eyes/Visto por ojos extranjeros, 1850-1990, ed. Naggar, Carole and Ritchin, Fred (New York and London: Norton, 1993), pp. 27–40, p. 27Google Scholar for invitation, divorce, Guggenheim denial. Katherine C. Ware, “Photographs of Mexico, 1940,” in Paul Strand, ed. Stange, pp. 109-121, esp. p. 109 for break with Stieglitz, divorce, Guggenheim.

12 Rosenblum, “Strand/Mexico.” Ware, “Photographs.” Alan Trachtenburg, “Introduction,” in Paul Strand, ed. Stange, pp. 1-17. Alexander William, “Paul Strand as Filmmaker, 1933-1942,” in Paul Strand, ed. Stange, pp. 148-160. Tomkins, Calvin, “Profile,” in Strand, Paul: Sixty Years of Photographs (Millerton, New York: Aperture, 1976), pp. 25–27 Google Scholar. Horak, Jan-Christopher, “Paul Strand: Romantic Modernist,” in Making Images Move: Photographers and Avant-Garde Cinema (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997), pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

13 Carlos Chavez, “Paul Strand,” draft. AGN Chávez Correspondencia II Paul Strand.

14 Delpar, The Enormous Vogue, p. 44, pp. 86-87.

15 AGN Chávez Correspondencia II Rebecca Strand.

16 Steve Yates, “The Transition Years: New Mexico,” in Paul Strand, ed. Stange, p. 87.

17 SEP, Departamento de Archivo Histórica y Reprografia, Colección Personal Sobresaliente, Expedients Personal, Chavez Ramirez, Carlos (SEP Chavez).

18 AGN Chávez Correspondencia II Rebecca Strand.

19 AGN Chávez Correspondencia II Paul Strand.

20 Oles, South of the Border, p. 95; Susan Sontag, On Photography, p. 14.

21 Strand, Sixty Years of Photographs, p. 153.

22 Mraz, “Envisioning Mexico,” pp. 8-20.

23 Naomi Rosenblum, “The Early Years,” in Paul Strand, ed. Stange, p. 41.

24 Ware, “Photographs,” p. 119.

25 Ware, “Photographs,” pp. 111-112.

26 Vaughan, Cultural Politics; Britton, John, Educación y radicalismo en Mexico. 1. Los años de Bassols (1931-34) (México, D.F.: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1976)Google Scholar; A brief overview of the social/political context of Michoacán in the 1930’s can be found in Krippner-Martinez, James, Rereading the Conquest: Power, Politics and the History of Early Colonial Michoacán, 1521-1565 (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), pp. 170–179.Google Scholar

27 On “lo mexicano,” see The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. Joseph, Gilbert M. and Henderson, Timothy J. (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 9–54 Google Scholar. Bartra, Roger, The Cage of Melancholy: Identity and Metamorphosis in the Mexican Character, trans. Hall, Christopher J. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992, orig. 1989).Google Scholar

28 Zavala, Adriana, “Constituting the Indian/Female Body in Mexican Painting, Cinema and Visual Culture, 1900–1950” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 2001), pp. 109–150.Google Scholar

29 Britton, John A., Educación y radicalismo en Mexico. I. Loa años de Bassols (1931-34) (México, D.F.: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1976), p. 12.Google Scholar

30 Delpar, The Enormous Vogue, p. 89.

31 Strand, Sixty Years, p. 155.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 SEP, Memoria relativo al estado que guarda el ramo de educación publica, tomo 1, Exposición (Mexico, D.F.: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1933), p. 417; Debroise, Mexican Suite, p. 134.

35 As cited in Yates, Steve, The Transition Years: Paul Strand in New Mexico (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico, 1989), p. 42.Google Scholar

36 Strand, Sixty Years, p. 155.

37 Albiñana, Mexicana, p. 198.

38 Yates, The Transition Years, p. 42. I have slightly edited the quotation as found in Yates, though all of Strand’s words remain.

39 As quoted in Ware, “Photographs,” p. 112.

40 Ware, “Photographs,” pp. 111-112.

41 Ware, “Photographs,” pp. 112-113.

42 SEP, Departamento Administrativo, Año de 1933, Referencia I-/131/. Expediente 41402. Legajo 1. Strand, Paul.

43 Delpar, The Enormous Vogue, p. 88.

44 The images are reproduced in Albiñana, Mexicana, pp. 212-214.

45 A similar break occurred in Mexico for Edward Weston, whose visit to Mexico and well known liaison with Tina Modotti preceded Strand by almost a decade. See Conger, Amy, Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923-26 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Lowe, Sarah M., Tina Modotti and Edward Weston: The Mexico Years (London and New York: Merrel, 2004)Google Scholar. A burgeoning literature on Tina Modotti has developed as Modotti’s photographs have become increasingly prominent and commercially valuable in the world of the fine arts. Selected recent works from a much more extensive bibliography include Noble, Andrea, Tina Modotti: Image, Texture, and Photography (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 2000)Google Scholar; Albers, Patricia, Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1999).Google Scholar

46 Albiñana, Mexicana., pp. 209-210. Ware, “Photographs,” p. 110. Stange, ed., Paul Strand, pp. 263-267.

47 Naggar, Caroline, “The Fascination For the Other,” in Mexico Through Foreign Eyes, ed. Naggar, and Ritchin, , p. 47.Google Scholar

48 Rosenblum, “Strand/Mexico,” p. 27.

49 Recent work includes Puntell, Jennie, Popular Movements and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico: The Agraristas and Cristeros of Michoacán (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 48–196 Google Scholar; Becker, Marjorie, Setting the Virgin on Fire: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán Peasants and the Redemption of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 6, 40, 125Google Scholar; Boyer, Christopher R., Becoming Campesinos: Politics, Identity, and Agrarian Struggle in Postrevolutionary Michoacán, 1920-1935 (Stanford, California; Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 154–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Vaughan, Cultural Politics, pp. 29-33. Britton, Educación, pp. 23-116.

51 Stebbins, Robert, “Redes,” New Theatre, November 1936 Google Scholar. In AGN Chávez Escritos 2 Redes 1937-38.

52 SEP, Año de 1933, Referenda D/1317 Expediente 41535, Velazquez Chávez, Agustin.

53 SEP Strand.

54 Albiñana, Mexicana, p. 198.

55 See Karetnikova, Inga, Mexico According to Eisenstein (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Millichap, Joseph, Steinbeck and Film (New York: Ungar, 1983).Google Scholar

56 Tomkins, , “Profile,” 26. SEP, Memoria, 1932, pp. 491–496 Google Scholar. Ibid., 1933, p. 419. Ibid., 1934, pp. 340-41.

57 “Strand and Chavez to Ignacio Garcia Telles,” February 28, 1935. AGN Chavez, Caja Correspondencia II “Paul Strand 1930-39.”

58 The precise authorship of this document, which has a “boilerplate” quality, is difficult to determine. It summarizes the ideological ambience of SEP at this time, a milieu that Chavez and Strand supported and helped define.

59 “Plan para la filmación de peliculas educativas.” AGN Chávez INBA Vol. II, Caja 2 “Filmación Películas.”

60 As such, this effort paralleled liberal/leftist tendencies of the same era in Hollywood. Though Strand never worked in Hollywood, several of his colleagues from Redes would. Only one of the crewmembers, Fred Zinnemann, was already established in Hollywood at the time of the making of Redes. For the general ambience of the era in Hollywood, see Schwartz, Nancy Lynn, The Hollywood Writers Wars (New York: Knopf, 1982)Google Scholar; Prindle, David F., The Politics of Glamour: Ideology and Democracy in the Screen Actor’s Guild (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1988)Google Scholar; Brownstein, Ron, The Power and the Glitter (New York: Pantheon, 1992).Google Scholar

61 “Strand to Chávez,” January 27, 1934. AGN Chávez, Sección Orquesta Sinfónica de México, INBA 2, Vol. II, Caja 2. “Paul Strand: Correspondencia.”

62 “Strand and Chavez to Ignacio Garcia Telles,” February 28, 1935. AGN Chavez, Caja Correspondencia II, Paul Strand, 1930-39.

63 Strand, Sixty Years of Photographs, p. 157.

64 For an extraordinarily thorough guide to these shifts and varied receptions among diverse constituencies in the United States, as well as in the expatriate US community in Mexico, see Britton, John A., Revolution and Ideology: Images of the Mexican Revolution in the United States (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995), esp. pp. 116–158.Google Scholar

65 Weaver, “Dynamic Realist,” p. 199.

66 “Strand to Kurt and Isabel Baasch,” Nov. 23, 1933. Center For Creative Photography, AG 137 Kurt Baasch Collection.

67 Though perhaps not. As John Mraz points out, “Any filmmaker knows it won’t be what you expected.” Mraz, personal communication, 5/12/06.

68 “Strand to Chávez,” January 27, 1934. AGN Chavez Paul Strand, 1930-39.

69 “Telegram from Chavez to Sr. Paul Strand.” SEP, Departamento de Archivo Historico, Fondo S.E.P., 1931-35, Sección de Bellas Artes, Serie Cinematografía (SEP Cinematografía).

70 “Strand to Chavez, “ February 9 and February 21, 1934. AGN Chavez Paul Strand 1930-39.

71 “Moore to Strand,” February 20, 1934. AGN Chávez, INBA Vol. II, Caja 2, Filmación Peliculas.

72 Ibid.

73 “Thomas D. Bowman to Alfonso Cortina,” July 2, 1934. SEP Cinematografía.

74 Strand to Chavez, February 26, 1934. AGN Chavez Paul Strand: Correspondencia.

75 “Chávez to Strand,” March 22, 1934. AGN Chavez Paul Strand: Correspondencia.

76 The gap between the filmmakers and the local population points towards a larger tension, sometimes successfully negotiated though frequently not, within the cultural project of the revolution. See Knight, Alan, “Popular Culture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910–1940,” Hispanic American Historical Review 74:3 (Aug., 1994), pp. 393–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

77 “Strand and Chavez to Ignacio Garcia Telles,” February 28, 1935. AGN Chavez Paul Strand: Correspondencia.

78 SEP Velazquez Chavez.

79 “Strand to Chávez,” March 12, 1934. AGN Chavez Paul Strand: Correspondencia.

80 “Chavez to Strand,” March 16, 1934. AGN Chavez Paul Strand: Correspondencia.

81 Mok, Michel, “Spare the Rod and Spoil the Actress: She’s Just a Simple (Not So Simple) Fishermaid, but she went Garbo Before the Movie Camera.” New York Evening Post, May 11 1937 Google Scholar. In AGN Chavez Caja Escritos 2: Redes.

82 Efrén N. Mata to C. Secretario el Ramo,” October 23, 1934. SEP Cinematografía.

83 Mok, “Spare the Rod.”

84 Ibid.

85 Britton, Educación, pp. 112-114.

86 Agustin Velazquez Chávez to C. Jefe del Departamento de Bellas Artes.” July 28, 1934. SEP Cinematografia.

87 Murillo, Fidel, “Una cinta del tropico, lista a fin del año: Se titula ‘pescados’, y está siendo producida por el Sr. Veleazquez Chavez.” La Opinion, Los Angeles, California, September 30, 1934 Google Scholar. In AGN Chávez Paul Strand 1930-39.

88 “Strand to Chávez, November 4, 1934. AGN Chavez Paul Strand 1930-39.

89 “Strand and Chavez to Ignacio Garcia Telles,” February 28, 1935.

90 Mok, “Spare the Rod.”

91 “‘Pescados’ argumento para una película que presentan Paul Strand y Agustin Velázquez Chávez,” and “Argumento para la filmación de la pelicula “Pescados”-revisión numero siete.” AGN Chávez INBA Vol. II, Caja 2 “Filmación Peliculas.”

92 Bleys, Rudi C., Images of Ambiente: Homotextuality and Latin American Art, 1810-Today (London and New York: Continuum, 2000), pp. 57–78.Google Scholar

93 Mok, “Spare the Rod.”