Thursday, March 9, 2023

Artist of the Day, March 9, 2023: Walker Evans, an American photographer (#1798)

 Walker Evans was an American photographer known for his documentary-style images of life in the U.S.A. His stirring portraits of the depression era have become iconic images in the cannon of 20th century art.

Evans grew up in Kenilworth, a suburb of Chicago. As a young man, Evans dreamed of becoming a writer. He studied literature at William College, Massachusetts for a year prior to moving to Paris in 1926, where he audited courses at the Sorbonne. In 1928 Evans returned to America settling in New York where he was absorbed into a tight circle of literary and artistic types. While he had begun to take photographs in Paris, he entered into serious experimentation in 1928. By 1930 he’d had three photographs published. The development of his descriptive/documentary style had already begun to emerge. The work of French 19th century photographer Eugene Atget became a strong and lasting influence.

During the 1930’s Walker took on a variety of projects and commissions. He was hired to take photographs in Cuba for a publication, Citizen in Downtown Havana and to photograph African art for the Museum of Modern Art, Figure Surmounting a Calabash, Belgian Congo, Urua. Perhaps the most significant project he took on was the work he did for the Resettlement Administration (later to become the Farm Security Administration) who hired him to document the southern United States with the intention of informing urban citizens of the plight of rural poor, Houses and Street in the Negro Quarter, Tupelo, Mississippi. This project would lead him to collaborate with James Agee, a long time friend, on a book focusing on the tenant farmers of the Southern United States, “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” Many of Walker’s images included in the book such as Tenant Farmer's Wife, Alabama have become lasting visual testaments to the hardships of the 1930’s American depression.

In 1943 Evans would pursue his desire to become a full time writer, accepting a job a Time Magazine; however by 1945 he reverted back to photography working for Fortune Magazine as an associate editor. In 1965 he became a professor of photography at the Yale University.

His career is distinguished with important exhibitions including major shows at the Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His awards are numerous and include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959 and in 1968 an honorary degree from Williams College and a fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and letters.

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 Walker Evans
1928. Couple at Coney Island
1929. Girl in Fulton Street, New York
1929.  6th Avenue
1929. Political Poster
1931. Lunch Wagon Detail, New York
1931. Millworkers' Houses, Willimantic, Connecticut
1931.  Stamped Tin Relic
1931. The Cactus Plant
Interior Detail of a Portuguese House, Truro, Massachusetts
1933. Coal Dock Worker
1934. License Photo Studio
1935. Barber Shop, New Orleans, Louisiana
1935. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
1935. Graveyard, Houses and Steel Mill, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
1935. Interior Detail, West Virginia Coal Miner's House
Scotts Run, West Virginia
1935. Joe's Auto Graveyard, Pennsylvania
1935. Main Street at Kingwood, West Virginia
1935. Roadside Store, Near Selma, Alabama
1935. Roadside View, Alabama Coal Area Company Town
1935. Rowlesburg, Preston County, West Virginia
1935. View of Easton, Pennsylvania
1936. Alabama City Block, Teague Hardware Company
1936. Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer Family
1936. Allie Mae Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama
1936. Church Organ with Pews, Alabama
1936. Floyd and Lucille Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama
1936. Penny Picture Display, Savannah Grotgia
1936. Roadside Stand, vicinity Birmingham, Alabama
1938-41. Subway portrait
1938-41. Subway portrait
1941 Wheaton College: Mary Lyon Hall and President's House

 

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