Walker Evans Retrospective
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco, CA
Through February 4, 2018
Article by Cathy Breslaw
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| Allie Mae Burroughs Wife of a Cotton Sharecropper Hale County Alabama 1936 gelatin silver print; private collection; Walker Evans Archive Museum of Metropolitan Art NYC |
Senior Curator of Photography
Clément Chéroux brings the Walker Evans Retrospective to the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art from its’ exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Walker Evans (1903-1975), was most interested in the “vernacular”, in
expressing as the dictionary defines it: using
a (visual) language or dialect native to a region or country. This solo
exhibition includes 300 vintage prints and 100 art objects on loan from the collections
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, the Art Institute of
Chicago, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Musée du quai Branly, the National
Gallery of Canada. and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Known for his documentary
style, Evans was fascinated by the ordinary.
He photographed main streets of small towns, laborers, sharecroppers,
dockworkers, transients, panhandlers, subway passengers and others whose challenging
lives reflected human dignity and resilience in the face of adversity. His
subjects were aware of being photographed, gazing directly into the lens of the
camera and into the faces of the viewers who see this exhibition. Evans was also
drawn to signage and typography, the organization of storefront displays, luncheonettes,
gas stations, fruit and vegetable stands, and objects like paper, and flyers
left by the side of the road – anything that revealed the character of the particular
neighborhoods or towns he visited and photographed.
During the several decades of
his career, Evans collected thousands of postcards, hand painted signage,
tickets, flyers, logos, brochures including a few paintings done by the artist,
which are exhibited alongside the hundreds of photographic prints, all
organized by theme, but all of which are classic documentary images of life in
America during the 20th century. Having spent 20 plus years as staff
photographer at Fortune Magazine, Evans also worked for the Farm Security
Administration during the Great Depression during the 1920’s – 1940’s where his
photographs put a ‘face’ on the poverty and under-recognized farmers, and general
culture that he felt revealed “American-ness” at that time.
Passionate about the minute
details of everyday American life, Evans was a primary influence in the development
of the American documentary style of photography and in helping to shape how we
see history, and to see the ‘everyday’ as
sublime. Though his photos were not meant to be ‘artsy’ or ‘beautiful’, Evans’
s renditions of life in America are compelling – both in their compositional
constructions as well as in the content they display.
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| Floyd and Lucille Burroughs Hale County Alabama 1936 gelatin silver print collection of the J Paul Getty Museum LA Walker Evans Archive, Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC |
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| Walker Evans Labor Anonymous Fortune 34, No 5, November 1946 offset lithography Centre Pompidou, Musee Nationale d'arte moderne, Paris Bibliotheque Kandinsky Collection of David Company; Walker Evans Archive; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC |
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| Walker Evans Roadside Stand Near Birmingham/Roadside Store Between Tuscaloosa and Greensboro Alabama 1936; gelatin silver print; collection of the J Paul Getty Museum LA, Walker Evans Archive, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC |
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| Walker Evans Truck and Sign, 1928-30 gelatin silver print; Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC |
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