Lathe, Akeley Shop, New York

1923

Paul Strand

(American, 1890–1976)

America

gelatin silver print

Image: 24.4 x 19.3 cm (9 5/8 x 7 5/8 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1984.34

Location: not on view

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Description

For a brief period during the first half of the 1920s, Strand created a remarkable group of precisionist photographs, close-up portraits of the Akeley Motion Picture Camera, machine gears, and in this picture, the lathe in the Akeley machine shop. All are studies of the modern machine, not just as a mechanical object, but as a form with dynamic aesthetic qualities. Relating to the European avant-garde of the 1910s, this photograph eloquently expresses Strand’s preoccupation with the surface, form, and volume of mechanical objects. Precisely cropped and lit, the energetic composition is a cavalcade of different geometric shapes, all pristinely rendered.