Walker Evans

Walker Evans was born in the U.S. from 1903 to 1975. He is a famous American photographer, whose work influenced development of ambitious photography. After Evans left college, he spent three years working in New York City where he later moved, and worked at dead-end jobs. When he was in France in 1926, when his father financed him to go to audition at Sorbonne (France) he took casual snapshots, that’s where his serious interest in photography developed. In the years 1928 and 1929 Evans created numerous substantial photographs that clearly indicated artistic ambition. Most of his photographs show patterns taken from skyscrapers or other machine-age products.

Evans style of work might have been once mistaken for that of a experienced if literal-minded commercial photographer but Gustave Flaubert expressed Evans idea of artist style, that an artist should be “like god in creation…he should be everywhere felt, but nowhere seen”.

Kitchen wall, Alabama, 1936

Evans photography created the powerful and unforgettable images of the time. When Evans went to New York, he visited subways and imaged people using a hidden camera, he took a series of rustic and urban America. He was also best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration recording the effects of the Greatest Depression.

references:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Evans

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/E/evans/evans.html

http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1634