Walker Evans American photographer Date of Birth: 03.11.1903 Country: USA

1. Biography of Walker Evans
2. Early Career
3. Farm Security Administration and Later Career
4. Later Years and Legacy
5. In 2000, Evans was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Biography of Walker Evans

Walker Evans, an American photographer, was born in 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri to Jessie and Walker Evans. His father worked in advertising, and they were a prosperous and well-off family. Evans spent his youth in Toledo, Chicago, and New York City. In 1922, he graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He also studied French literature at Williams College for a year, immersing himself in reading.

Early Career

After spending a year in Paris, Evans returned to the United States in 1926, during the literary boom. He was friends with notable figures such as John Cheever, Hart Crane, and Lincoln Kirstein. In 1927-1929, Evans worked as a clerk on Wall Street. It was in 1928 that he started taking photographs while living in Ossining, New York. In 1930, one of his photographs titled "Brooklyn Bridge" appeared in his friend Crane's poetry collection, "The Bridge." He continued working and in 1931, Evans did a photoshoot of Victorian houses in Boston and its surroundings. In 1933, he was sent to Cuba to take photographs for a book titled "The Crime of Cuba," commissioned by a publisher. It was in Cuba that Evans had the opportunity to get to know Ernest Hemingway.

Farm Security Administration and Later Career

By the late 1930s, Evans had established himself as a respected photographer and reporter. From 1936 onwards, he worked regularly for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), a government program. He remained with the FSA until 1938, documenting various locations such as Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Alabama, and more.

In 1938, Evans had his first solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Titled "Walker Evans: American Photographs," it was the museum's first exhibition dedicated solely to the work of a single photographer. In the same year, Evans began taking his famous hidden-camera photographs in the New York City subway. These photographs were later compiled into the book "Many are Called," published in 1966.

Outside of photography, Evans remained an avid reader and writer. In 1945, he became a staff writer for Time magazine before becoming an editor for Fortune magazine, a position he held until 1965. In the same year, Evans became a professor of photography at Yale University School of Art.

Later Years and Legacy

In 1971, The Museum of Modern Art organized an exhibition of Evans' late works simply titled "Walker Evans." Evans passed away on October 10, 1975, in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

In 1994, The Estate of Walker Evans donated a portion of his works to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, making it the sole owner of his artistic legacy. The Library of Congress also holds around 1000 negatives of Walker Evans' work.

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

It is known that Walker Evans once said, "People often ask me what camera I use. I tell them it's not the camera, it's...," and he pointed to his heart.