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Havana Citizen / Citizen in Downtown Havana

Walker Evans1933

The J. Paul Getty Museum

The J. Paul Getty Museum
Los Angeles, United States

Except for certain morning shopping hours, Havana is still a largely male city. The tide of pedestrians along narrow Obispo Street, with its cavernous cool dark stores, or under the Prado portals, wall-papered with magazines and multicolored lottery tickets, the idlers in the open air cafes--nearly all are men in white linen, now and then a bright tie under a dark chin shaded by a straw hat tilted effectively.

Walker Evans's photograph is the exact embodiment of writer Carleton Beals's description of Havana in his book Crimes of Cuba. Tall, dark, and handsome in a crisp white linen suit and straw boater, this "Havana Citizen" standing down by the newsstand filled with glamorous movie magazines casts a wary glance at a subject just out of camera range. Although Evans contributed photographs he made in Cuba to Beals's book, this evocative image did not appear in the publication.

Details

  • Title: Havana Citizen / Citizen in Downtown Havana
  • Creator: Walker Evans
  • Date Created: 1933
  • Physical Dimensions: 22.2 × 11.7 cm (8 3/4 × 4 5/8 in.)
  • Type: Print
  • External Link: Find out more about this object on the Museum website.
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Terms of Use: Open Content
  • Number: 84.XM.956.484
  • Culture: American
  • Credit Line: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
  • Creator Display Name: Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975)
  • Classification: Photographs (Visual Works)

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