Dorin Pintile, Onesti, Rumania

Paul Strand may have wanted to make this portrait because of the rather magnificent hat, a quasi-sculptural creation of leather, fabric, and wire. Like his photographs do, the hat marries a craftsman’s dexterity with materials to a mechanical form. But Strand would never have photographed the hat without its wearer. In his later years especially, socialist societies and their promise of a better humanity formed his deepest concern. The beautiful, somewhat androgynous Dorin Pintile is a worker in the oil industry, a vital engine for communist Romania. See also: Mark Crinson, “Paul Strand’s Ghana and Photography after Colonialism,” Art Bulletin (December 2016)