Walker Evans
1903 – 1975
The photographer who defined the documentary style of American life
About Walker Evans
Walker Evans was born on November 3, 1903, in St. Louis, Missouri, into a comfortable middle-class family; his father worked in advertising. He was educated at a series of preparatory schools, including Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and spent a single year at Williams College before dropping out. In 1926 he traveled to Paris, where he audited courses at the Sorbonne and absorbed the literary modernism of writers such as…
Read full biography →From the Collection
Walker Evans, profile, hand up to face
1937
[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Walker Evans,…
1937
[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Walker Evans,…
1937
[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Walker Evans,…
1937
[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Walker Evans,…
1937
[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Walker Evans,…
1937
Notable Works
Allie Mae Burroughs
Among the most celebrated portraits in American photography, this frontal close-up shows Allie Mae Burroughs, the 27-year-old wife of Alabama cotton sharecropper Floyd Burroughs and a mother of…
View related photographs →Penny Picture Display, Savannah
A photograph of a portrait studio's window in Savannah, Georgia, filled with a dense grid of small customer portraits beneath the word STUDIO. Evans loved the unaffected charm of useful, vernacular…
View related photographs →Roadside Stand near Birmingham, Alabama
A frontal view of a roadside stand near Birmingham, Alabama, its hand-painted signs advertising fish and fruit. The image distills Evans's fascination with American vernacular commerce and signage,…
View related photographs →Timeline
Born in St. Louis, Missouri on November 3
Graduates from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts
Spends a year in Paris, auditing courses and absorbing literary modernism
Takes up photography while working a clerical job in New York
Three of his Brooklyn Bridge photographs appear in Hart Crane's poem "The Bridge"
"Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long."
— Walker Evans