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Walker Evans, American, 1903-1975
Walker Evans began photographing seriously in 1928. After returning from Europe at the age of twenty-four he found himself in New York where his passion for photography was ignited. While experimenting with different photographic styles, Evans created images of a variety of subjects from very abstract architectural work to what at the time was cutting edge street photography. He made many images that many people felt paved the way for future photographers such as Robert Frank and Gary Winogrand.
In the early 1930?s Evans moved on to a new project which would help develop his documentary style. He spent time in New England photographing Victorian homes for an exhibition to coincide with the publication of a book on 19th century architecture. This is where Evans first began using a large format camera. Later Evans was asked by publisher J.P. Lippencott to produce photographs to illustrate a book about Cuba by radical journalist Carleton Beals. Evans spent 3 weeks in Havana creating images which continued to solidify his style, but the work that would define Evans and forever place him in the consciousness of the American public was soon to follow.
After a period of time spent photographing throughout the South Evans began photographing for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1935. Evans, along with other photographers like Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee, was hired by the government to document the lives of the American farmer during the 1930s. In his photographs of crumbling farm towns and faces etched with despair and hope we can still see and feel today the depths of The Great Depression. This work was so powerful that it helped to educate an entire nation about the plight of the American farmer.
While photographing for the FSA Evans also had several bodies of work published in Fortune magazine and this was to begin an association out of which would come his largest body of work. In 1941 when America was gearing up its war effort, Evans was asked by Fortune to photograph the many factories making arms and munitions in Bridgeport, CT. The Bridgeport series was stylistically reminiscent of his earlier street photographs made in New York, but like his deeply moving work done for the FSA Evans managed to show us the complex human face of the American worker. Evans stayed with Fortune until 1965 when he took a teaching position at Yale University. He continued to teach, photograph, exhibit and publish his work until his death in 1975.
Bibliography:
Matthew Wysocki, Walker Evans: Artist - In - Residence, The Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1972.
Andrei Codrescu, Signs Walker Evans, Christopher Hudson, 1998.
Peter Galassi, Walker Evans and Company, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2000.
Michael Brix, Birgit Mayer, Walker Evans America, Rizzoli, 1990.
Jeff L. Rosenheim, Douglas Eklund, Unclassified: A Walker Evans Anthology, Scalo Zurich in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998.
Rodger Kingston, Walker Evans in Print: An Illustrated Bibliography, R.P. Kingston Photographs, 1995.
Lesley K. Baier, Walker Evans at Fortune, 1945-1965, Wellesley College Museum, 1978.
Giles Mora, John T. Hill, Walker Evans The Hungry Eye, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1993.
Judith Keller, Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995.
Lincoln Kirstein, Walker Evans: American Photographs, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1938.
Ellen Fleurov, Walker Evans: Simple Secrets, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1998.
Maria Morris Hambourg, Jeff L. Rosenheim, Douglas Eklund, Mia Fineman, Walker Evans, Princeton University Press, 2000.
Jerry L. Thompson, Walker Evans at Work, Harper & Row, 1982.
Jerald C. Maddox, Walker Evans: Photographs for the Farm Security Administration, 1935-1938, Da Capo Press, Inc., 1973.
Sarah Greenough, Walker Evans: Subways and Streets, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1991.
Gilles Mora, Walker Evans, Photo Poche, 1990.
Robert Plunket, Walker Evans: Florida, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Belinda Rathbone, Walker Evans: A Biography, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995.
John Szarkowski, Walker Evans, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1971.
Gilles Mora, John T. Hill, Walker Evans: Havana 1933, Pantheon Books, 1989.
Luc Sante, Walker Evans 55, Phaidon Press Limited, NY, 2001.
James R. Mellow, Hilton Kramer, Walker Evans, Basic Books, 1999.
Christian Peterson, Walker Evans, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2003.
John T. Hill, Alan Trachtenberg, Walker Evans: Lyric Documentary, Steidl Publishers, Gottingen, Germany, 2006. |
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