Coming from a wealthy background, Walker Evans attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and graduated in 1922. He continued his education in literature by attending Williams College, a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts until1923. Evans, before his photography started, furthered his schooling studying more literature at the Sorbonne, which is part of the University of Paris. Studying at such prestigious schools, Evans was building on the knowledge that would make his photographs so impressive. Evans did not start taking photographs until 1928 when he was 25. Shortly after Evans teamed up with scholar, Lincoln Kirstein who attended Harvard University at that time. What amazes me the most about Walker Evans is the amount of education he had and the role that literature played in his work. The photos that Evans took were so specific of the ideas that he wanted to portray. Each photograph, if looked at more carefully than a glance, reveals a larger more meaningful message. It was his education, wisdom, and cleverness that really made his photographs great. They had more meaning than a document and were meant to have a lasting impression on the viewer. Evans provoked thought in his viewers and I believe he had a much higher level of thinking than many photographers in history. He had a unique way of seeing things and composing his photographs with precision. When Baldwin Lee talked of Evans’ collection, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, this amazing level of seeing was truly displayed. Walker Evans was a photographic genius and as a result he became professor of photography at Yale’s School of art and architecture. I loved the idea that Evan’s was inspired by literature, which is not always associated with art. Walker Evans’ photographs were highly educated. It was his education that made his photographs so clever, ironic, thought provoking, and original.

Ryan Kann

Baldwin Lee, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Photos by Walker Evans" Artist lecture, UWEC- Foster Gallery, 12 November, 2010.

Biography/Chronology of Walker Evans. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/FSA/chrono.html