Walker Evans Analysis

In fact, due to his documentary approach in photography, Evans belonged to the first generation growing up on photojournalism. The photographer also developed a series of sign collages: Outdoor Advertisements (1929) and Broadway (1930) (Epstein 2000). Such works were bringing over $100 per photo at those times; however, the Great Depression was on its way (Epstein 2000).
Walker Evans’ career took off very quickly due to the photographer’s talent and charisma. In the early stages of his professional path, he got acquainted with the rich and young editor of Hound & Horn Lincoln Kirstein who was startled by the Evans’ works. Soon after Kirstein offered Evans to travel around New England and take pictures of Victorian architecture for a possible
Next to him, there is a life-sized picture of a woman pointing at her left palm that used to hold something for sale, but not anymore. Just above the cupboard, we can see a vivid picture of a mother and her child radiating health and happiness and so much contrasting with the boy in the foreground.
Walker Evans is very honest and direct in this photograph: there are no pictorial blurred figures or shadows. He depicts the American tragedy: a lonely child in a cold house where Santa would appear only as a poster on the wall and the advertisement promises would remain promises.
This immediacy with the subjects of his works contributed a lot to what would become later the climax of Evans’ career. In the summer of 1936, the photographer took a leave of absence from the FSA to accompany his friend to the South, the writer James Agee, who was heading there to document the plight of tenant farmers in Fortune magazine (Vanderlan 2009). Although the magazine editors eventually decided not to public the long text about three families in Alabama, the collaborative work a few years later incarnated into the book called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. The collection became iconic because it lured the viewers into the horrifying reality of the Great
However, according to the contemporary critics, the isolation of those people in front of the blank wall with their bored expressions and similar clothing did not bring the best of Evans any more: they looked too homogenized, almost like robots (Epstein 2000). Nevertheless, he remained influential in the photography world; his followers would be Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Helen Levitt. The Walker Evans of the 1930s proved that true great photography can be achieved only by reflective vision and unique background. Even though the photographer’s work at the FSA epitomizes documentary style, his works were still full of artistic substance, very different from the pictorial one. Walker Evans managed to catch and express different tints and shades of American life by unmediated connection with his