Walker Evans: 12 works

A slideshow of artworks auto-selected from multiple collections

By Google Arts & Culture

Roadside Stand, vicinity Birmingham, Alabama (1936, printed ca. 1971 by Jim Dow) by Walker EvansGeorge Eastman Museum

'Born in 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri, Walker Evans was raised in Chicago and New York.'

Couple at Coney Island (1928) by Walker EvansThe J. Paul Getty Museum

'Walker Evans photographed this couple from behind as they held each other and looked out over the water toward the famous central tower at Luna Park, one of the resort's amusement parks.'

Girl in Fulton Street, New York (1929) by Walker EvansThe J. Paul Getty Museum

'Engrossed in thought, she appears to be entirely unaware of Walker Evans's presence.'

Lunch Wagon Detail, New York (1931) by Walker EvansThe J. Paul Getty Museum

'With an unerring eye for details and signs, Walker Evans focused on this charming advertisement painted on the side of a lunch wagon.'

A Bench in the Bronx on Sunday (1933) by Walker EvansThe J. Paul Getty Museum

'Walker Evans in turn regarded them less as individuals than as representatives of the human condition.'

Second Avenue Lunch / Posed Portraits, New York (about 1933)The J. Paul Getty Museum

'Both men look directly at Walker Evans in a rare posed portrait from Evans's body of work.'

License Photo Studio, New York (1934) by Walker EvansThe J. Paul Getty Museum

'Walker Evans's closely cropped photograph isolates the business on the corner, transforming it into a curious box.'

Part of Phillipsburg, New Jersey (1935) by Walker EvansThe J. Paul Getty Museum

'Walker Evans declared that he was not interested in "educated architecture," but in vernacular styles such as those seen in this image of an industrial town.'

Roadside Sandwich Shop, Ponchatoula, Louisiana (1936) by Walker EvansThe Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

'Walker Evans's principal subject was the vernacular--roadside stands, cheap cafés, advertisements, simple bedrooms, and small-town streets.'

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1936) by Walker Evansla Biennale di Venezia - Biennale Arte 2015

'After returning home to New York City in 1927, he soon began to explore the medium of photography and the aesthetics of modernism, though the tide of social realism provoked his most innovative and poetic documentary work. Evans accepted a government position with the Resettlement Administration (later called the Farm Security Administration), alongside other photographers such as Dorothea Lange, to photograph the conditions of poverty and the effects of social welfare programs across Depression- era America.'

Silverware (1936) by Walker EvansThe Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

'Evans made this photograph while on assignment with writer James Agee to investigate the plight of Southern tenant farmers in rural Alabama-a project that culminated in their book Let Us No= w Praise Famous Men (1941).'

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1936) by Walker Evansla Biennale di Venezia - Biennale Arte 2015

'His direct yet subtle and sensual way of photographing people and their everyday surroundings was as admired by his contemporaries as by the generations of artists to follow. Years earlier, in 1926, the young Evans had abandoned his study of French literature at Williams College in Massachusetts to spend a year in Paris, where he studied French and explored his aptitude for writing, both fiction and nonfiction.'

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