Penny Picture Display, Savannah
1936, printed c. 1962
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image/paper/first mount: 21.7 × 17.7 cm (8 9/16 × 7 in.); Second mount: 45.7 × 35.3 cm (18 × 13 15/16 in.)
Classification
gelatin silver (developing-out-paper) pr
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
88584
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Walker Evans was remarkably adept at straddling the cultural divide between documentary photography and the museum. One of several photographers hired by the Farm Security Administration to document the Depression, Evans made some of his most famous images in the summer of 1936: pictures of impoverished families in Hale County, Alabama, later published in his book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Just two years later, he was honored with a one-person show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, whic...
About the Artist
Walker Evans · 1903–1975
Walker Evans (1903–1975) was born on November 3, 1903, in St. Louis, Missouri, to an affluent family; his father, Walker Evans Sr., worked as an advertising director. Raised across Toledo, Chicago, and New York City, he attended elite preparatory schools including Phillips Academy in Andover before briefly studying French literature at Williams College, from which he dropped out after one year. A ...