Walker Evans

Photographer, born in St Louis, Missouri, USA. In 1933 he started as an architectural photographer, but from 1935 began to record social deprivation in the Southern states for the US government Farm Security Administration, the two themes being combined in his American Photographs (1938). He was associate editor of Fortune (194565), and professor of graphic design at Yale (196574). His work with the writer James Agee to document the lives of the share-croppers of the Deep South, eventually published as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), is considered to be one of the best writerphotographer collaborations.

Walker Evans
Walker Evans
Born	November 3, 1903 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. Evans and other FSA photographers used this technique, and others, to emphasize the plight of America's poor and workers during the Great Depression. In some ways, Evans is perhaps the first and greatest photographer of the American social landscape. Biography Born in Saint Louis, Missouri, Walker Evans was part of a well-to-do family. Intimidated by the difficulty of writing great prose, Evans turned to photography in 1930. Evans went there on assignment for the publisher of Carleton Beals' then-forthcoming book, The Crime of Cuba. The photographs Evans created there do not illustrate Beals' florid tales of political intrigue and violence. In Cuba, Evans briefly knew Ernest Hemingway and may have influenced his work. Evans was a passionate reader and writer and – from his later years as a staff writer (1945) at Time Magazine and then editor (1945-65) at Fortune magazine – a skilled prose stylist. In 1938 and 1939, Evans worked with and mentored Helen Levitt. In 1941, Evans co-published, along with James Agee, the ground-breaking book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. It was a series of photos by Evans along with accompanying text by Agee, detailing the duo's journey through the rural South during the Great Depression. The three families headed by Bud Fields, Floyd Burroughs and Frank Tingle, lived in Hale County, Alabama, near the small town of Akron, and the owners of the land on which the families worked told them that Evans and Agee were "Soviet agents," although Allie Mae Burroughs, Floyd's wife, recalled discounting that information during interviews conducted later in her life. Today, in Hale County, Alabama, Evans, Agee and their book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men remain controversial -- with many of the subjects' descendants maintaining the family was presented in a falsely unflattering light by Evans's photographs. Evans and Agee were originally sent to Hale County on assignment by Fortune magazine, which subsequently opted not to run the story. In September, 2005, Fortune revisited Hale County and the descendants of the three families for its 75th anniversary issue: Evans continued to work for the FSA until 1938. That year, an exhibition, Walker Evans: American Photographs, was held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The catalogue included an accompanying essay by Lincoln Kirstein, whom Evans had befriended in his early days in New York. In 1938, Evans also took his first photographs in the New York subway with a camera hidden in his coat. It has been suggested that Evans provided the inspiration behind Andy Warhol's photo booth portraits, following the publication of 'Subway Portraits' in Harper's Bazaar in March 1962. Evans first experimented with the photo booth self portraits in New York in 1929, using it to detach his own artistic presence from his imagery, craving after the true objectivity of what he later described as the "ultimate purity" of the "record method." In addition to his strong documentary work, Evans developed an abstract modernist style, using the tools of both black-and-white and colour photography to cover both socio-political issues and more conceptual artistic ideas. Evans, like such other photographers as Henri Cartier-Bresson, rarely spent time in the darkroom making prints from his own negatives. In 1965, Evans became professor of photography on the faculty for Graphic Design at the Yale University School of Art (formerly the Yale School of Art and Architecture). In 1971, the Museum of Modern Art staged a further exhibition of his work entitled simply Walker Evans. Evans died in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1975. Alexis Scwarzenbach Unclassified: A Walker Evans Anthology, Maria Morris Hambourg, Scalo / The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Walker Evans

Born

November 3, 1903
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. Evans and other FSA photographers used this technique, and others, to emphasize the plight of America's poor and workers during the Great Depression. In some ways, Evans is perhaps the first and greatest photographer of the American social landscape.

Biography

Born in Saint Louis, Missouri, Walker Evans was part of a well-to-do family.

Intimidated by the difficulty of writing great prose, Evans turned to photography in 1930. Evans went there on assignment for the publisher of Carleton Beals' then-forthcoming book, The Crime of Cuba. The photographs Evans created there do not illustrate Beals' florid tales of political intrigue and violence. In Cuba, Evans briefly knew Ernest Hemingway and may have influenced his work.

Evans was a passionate reader and writer and – from his later years as a staff writer (1945) at Time Magazine and then editor (1945-65) at Fortune magazine – a skilled prose stylist.

In 1938 and 1939, Evans worked with and mentored Helen Levitt. In 1941, Evans co-published, along with James Agee, the ground-breaking book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. It was a series of photos by Evans along with accompanying text by Agee, detailing the duo's journey through the rural South during the Great Depression.

The three families headed by Bud Fields, Floyd Burroughs and Frank Tingle, lived in Hale County, Alabama, near the small town of Akron, and the owners of the land on which the families worked told them that Evans and Agee were "Soviet agents," although Allie Mae Burroughs, Floyd's wife, recalled discounting that information during interviews conducted later in her life. Today, in Hale County, Alabama, Evans, Agee and their book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men remain controversial -- with many of the subjects' descendants maintaining the family was presented in a falsely unflattering light by Evans's photographs.

Evans and Agee were originally sent to Hale County on assignment by Fortune magazine, which subsequently opted not to run the story. In September, 2005, Fortune revisited Hale County and the descendants of the three families for its 75th anniversary issue:

Evans continued to work for the FSA until 1938. That year, an exhibition, Walker Evans: American Photographs, was held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The catalogue included an accompanying essay by Lincoln Kirstein, whom Evans had befriended in his early days in New York.

In 1938, Evans also took his first photographs in the New York subway with a camera hidden in his coat.

It has been suggested that Evans provided the inspiration behind Andy Warhol's photo booth portraits, following the publication of 'Subway Portraits' in Harper's Bazaar in March 1962. Evans first experimented with the photo booth self portraits in New York in 1929, using it to detach his own artistic presence from his imagery, craving after the true objectivity of what he later described as the "ultimate purity" of the "record method."

In addition to his strong documentary work, Evans developed an abstract modernist style, using the tools of both black-and-white and colour photography to cover both socio-political issues and more conceptual artistic ideas.

Evans, like such other photographers as Henri Cartier-Bresson, rarely spent time in the darkroom making prints from his own negatives.

In 1965, Evans became professor of photography on the faculty for Graphic Design at the Yale University School of Art (formerly the Yale School of Art and Architecture).

In 1971, the Museum of Modern Art staged a further exhibition of his work entitled simply Walker Evans.

Evans died in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1975. Alexis Scwarzenbach Unclassified: A Walker Evans Anthology, Maria Morris Hambourg, Scalo / The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Walker Evans

Biography

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