Picture the Past

Discussion through works of art encourage how to approach ambiguous and complex ideas, thoughts, and feelings. The MFAH offers a democratic space where students and teachers can develop, practice and articulate these habits of mind. Remember that the quality of the conversation is what is important, not finding the artist’s “answer.” Slow down and take the time to make careful observations. Talk about what you notice, and try to avoid jumping to conclusions and interpretations. Be sure to give enough time for silent looking and thinking.

Work of Art

Raised in St. Louis, suburban Chicago, and Toledo, Walker Evans briefly attended Williams College in Massachusetts, but he did not excel academically and dropped out after two semesters. In 1926, he sailed for Paris and stayed abroad thirteen months, spending his time browsing through bookstores, observing life, and working on his writing. Evans later said that by sitting in the cafes of Paris, he learned the art of observation. He moved to New York City in 1927 and divided his time between writing and photography. By working odd jobs at night, he had the freedom to roam the streets of New York by day searching for inspiration. Evans was never satisfied with his efforts to be a creative writer, and he took up photography in earnest in 1930. That same year, three of his photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge were published with the epic poem, The Bridge, by Hart Crane. Evans never abandoned his first love, writing, but photography was his genius. He often collaborated with other writers and artists to illustrate their poems, books, and magazine articles. In 1965, he became Professor of Photography on the Faculty for Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art and Architecture. He continued to teach, write, photograph, exhibit, and publish his work until his death in 1975.

 

Evans’ starkly composed studies of building construction around Manhattan, and his views of the city’s changing skyline as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge, are illustrations of his fascination with New York. This image of the Manhattan skyline is among the first of Evans’s photographs of the city, and was taken only a few months before the great stock market crash of 1929. The photograph portrays the successes of the 1920’s in the ever-changing and quickly soaring skyline in the years before the depression.

 

In addition to his photographs of New York, Evans is probably best known for his photographs of roadside stands, advertisements, and small-town streets during the depression. The style of his precise, straightforward depictions of people and artifacts of American life became a style that was often copied by other artists. Evans’s early photographs were made with a small handheld camera and were often contact prints. With contact prints, the final photograph can be only as large as the original negative, which is why this photograph is so small. Later, Evans used larger cameras that required tripods for stability during long exposures, and he often spent hours considering his subject and waiting for the right lighting before taking a shot. Evans used the same care in editing his photographs, often trimming millimeters, cropping inches, even scissoring entire negatives in two so that the resulting image focused on exactly what he wanted the audience to see.

 

Americans in the Roaring Twenties turned inward, away from international issues and social concerns and toward greater individualism. These were years of great industrial growth and development in the United States, and it seemed as if the prosperity would never end. Even after the stock market crash in the fall of 1929, people were still optimistic. But as the Depression deepened, millions of investors lost their life savings, businesses closed their doors, factories shut down, banks failed, and millions of people became unemployed. The rapid upward expansion of New York in the 1920s that people thought would continue forever was frozen for decades while America struggled out of the Great Depression.

Conversation

Observe

• Moving from top to bottom, describe the composition. How much of the scene is actually taken up by the skyline?
• Where do you think this picture was taken from? How can you tell?
• Is this a big photograph or a small photograph?
• Compare this photograph to the work of other early photographers, like Ansel Adams. How is this work different?

Interpret

• Is this what you picture the New York City skyline looking like? How is it different from the skyline as you know it? How is it similar?
• What feelings do you think Evans had toward the city? What visual clues support your thinking?
• Evans photographed the biggest city in the country using a tiny camera. What feelings do you get from the final product? Do you think he captured the city?
• Evans began as an amateur photographer, so he had access to limited technology. Some of the grain in this image is due to the limitations of his camera and printing materials. Does it also have an effect on the image’s mood and message?

Subject Matter

Assessment

• Research other images of the New York skyline, including other works by Walker Evans. What can be learned about the city just by looking at the pictures? How do the images compare with this view by Evans?

Resources

Resources Available to Order

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