Walker EvansTrue American

artist

Walker Evans was one of the most influential artist of the twentieth century. he had an ability to see the present as if it

were already the past

Evans’ early photographs came from the influence of European modernism but he moved away from this and created his own style of realism

In June 1935, he accepted a job from the U.S. Department of the Interior to

photograph a government-built resettlement community of unemployed coal miners in West Virginia. He quickly

made this temporary employment into a full-time position as an "information specialist" in the Resettlement (later Farm Security) Administration, a New

Deal agency in the Department of Agriculture.

Source: Walker Evans (1903–1975) | Thematic Essay | Heilbronn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum

of Art

His photographs of roadside architecture, rural churches,

small-town barbers, and cemeteries reveal a deep respect for the neglected

traditions of the common man and secured his reputation as

America's preeminent documentarian. From their

first appearance in magazines and books in the late 1930s, these direct, iconic images

entered the public's collective consciousness and are now

deeply embedded in the nation's shared visual history

of the Depression

Source: Walker Evans (1903–1975) | Thematic Essay | Heilbronn Timeline of Art

History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Between 1938 and 1941, Evans produced a remarkable series of portraits in the New York City subway . They remained unpublished for twenty-five years, until 1966, when Houghton Mifflin released Many Are Called, a book of eighty-nine photographs, with an introduction by James Agee written in 1940. With a 35mm Contax camera strapped to his chest, its lens peeking out between two buttons of his winter coat, Evans was able to photograph his fellow passengers secretly, and at close range. Although the setting was public, he found that his subjects, unopposed and lost in their own thoughts, displayed a constantly shifting medley of moods and expressions—by turns curious, bored, amused, despondent, dreamy. "The guard is down and the mask is off," he remarked. "Even more than in lone bedrooms (where there are mirrors), people's faces are in naked repose down in the subway."

• In 1973, Evans began to work with the innovative Polaroid SX-70 camera and an unlimited supply of film from its manufacturer. The virtues of the camera fit perfectly with his search for a concise yet poetic vision of the world. The unique SX-70 prints are the artist's last photographs, the culmination of half a century of work in photography. With the new camera, Evans returned to several of his enduring themes—among the most important of which are signs, posters, and their ultimate reduction, the letter forms themselves

Works cited • "Walker Evans: Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife (2001.415)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art

History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2001.415

"Walker Evans: [Lunchroom Window, New York] (1971.646.35)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1971.646.35

"Walker Evans: [Church, Beaufort, South Carolina] (1999.237.3)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1999.237.3

"Walker Evans: Torn Movie Poster (1987.1100.59)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1987.1100.59

"Walker Evans: http://ghpoetryplace.blogspot.com/2010/10/mule-team-and-poster.html• "Walker Evans:http: roadside stand near Birmingham, Alabama

1936//ramapophotoj.blogspot.com/2009/02/fsa-photographers.html”