Walker Evans

by Walker Evans (Photographer), Gilles Mora (Introduction)

The classic Photofile series brings together the best work of the world's greatest photographers in an attractive format and at a reasonable price. Handsome and collectible, the books are produced to the highest standards. Each volume contains some sixty reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography.

"The real thing that I'm talking about has purity and a certain severity, rigor, simplicity, directness, clarity, and it is without artistic pretension in a self-conscious sense of the word." Walker Evans himself provided this perfect definition of his own work. He photographed Depression-era America with a constant striving for objectivity, a kind of documentary neutrality. Nevertheless, the sculptural subtlety of his images and the close attention he pays to both people and things marked an entire generation of artists. 63 duotone illustrations

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction, Reference, Art

144 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1971

About the author

Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans's work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera. He said that his goal as a photographer was to make pictures that are "literate, authoritative, transcendent".

Many of his works are in the permanent collections of museums and have been the subject of retrospectives at such institutions as The Metropolitan Museum of Art or George Eastman House.

In 2000, Evans was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame

Reviews

[Juan Peirano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una representación un poco simple sobre parte de la obra del maestro

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 stars; Exploring the classics in photography; feast your eyes on these works of art; not all masterpieces but plenty to go around to get you inspired. Many of these collections are long out of print; check out the Internet Archive (https://archive.org); many of the timeless classics are made freely available or after signing up, free to (digitally) borrow.

[Margot Note]

"Evans's strength lay in accepting and mastering the duality of the photographic document, which constantly swivels between two points, serving both as an imprint of reality that is an inevitable project of the technological process, and as an object of aesthetic contemplation, born of the photographer's artistic impulse. Evans acknowledges this ambiguity in what he himself calls his 'documentary style', which he elaborates as follows: 'The real thing that I'm talking about has purity and a certain severity, rigor, or simplicity, directness, clarity, and it is without artistic pretension in a self-conscious sense of the word.'"

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purchased from London Portrait Gallery, summer 2010. Walker Evans is brilliant. The biography at the beginning of the book is incredibly concise and provides interesting details despite its brevity.