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Lot 142
Walker Evans(1903-1975)Main Street Block, Selma, Alabama
11 – 21 September 2023, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsSold for US$768 inc. premium
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James Leighton
Walker Evans (1903-1975)
Main Street Block, Selma, Alabama, 1936
Gelatin silver print, printed 1970s by the Library of Congress; annotated in pencil with Library of Congress stamp in ink on the verso; matted.
10 3/8 x 13 3/8 in. (26.4 x 34.0 cm)
sheet 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
Gelatin silver print, printed 1970s by the Library of Congress; annotated in pencil with Library of Congress stamp in ink on the verso; matted.
10 3/8 x 13 3/8 in. (26.4 x 34.0 cm)
sheet 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
Footnotes
N.B.
Walker Evans, an American photographer and photojournalist, arguably had the greatest influence on the evolution of photography in the 20th century. He gained recognition for moving beyond the highly aestheticized, artistic photography that preceded his era, with his own constructed images of an unidealized American life throughout the Great Depression.
In 1935, Roy Stryker hired Evans to photograph for the Resettlement Administration and later Farm Security Administration, which were New Deal era projects tasked with creating a pictorial record of American life. Developed out of a program designed to lift farmers out of poverty during the Depression, the documentary photography project included seminal artists including Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, among others. Running until 1944, it remains one of the largest documentary projects ever undertaken.
The photographs that Evans made during this time show a commitment to an unsentimental style that rejects the dramatics in favor of clearly described and distinctive domestic experiences. Evans photographed for the FSA during the early years of its run and in 1938, influential curator Lincoln Kirstein included many of these works in the exhibition Walker Evans: American Photographs. The exhibition was the first single-photographer exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and the accompanying catalogue is often held as one of the most important photobooks in the history of photography.