The Intermingled Works of Evans and Agee

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men was originally conceived as a feature for Fortune magazine. It sent James Agee and Walker Evans deep into the South to experience and document the lives of tenant farmers. (Ophir, par 2)Though the story never ran in Fortune, the 400-some page book that resulted did more justice portraying the poor, Southern lifestyle than a magazine article ever could. Agee created a passionate, intensely honest narrative that is now perpetually associated with the photographs of Walker Evans. Together they redefined documentary photography and journalism. It is interesting, however, that Evans became so intertwined with the development of documentary because it is likely even that he would have objected to his photographic purpose being defined as “documenting.” Evans did not want his photographs to be supplementary material for text. On his photographic assignments, Evans made it a point not to read the manuscripts beforehand that his photographs would be accompanying. That way, their themes would not influence his vision. For the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Evans wanted his photographs to appear separately. He wanted viewers to derive their own meaning from the images and not be swayed by Agee’s commentary. (Oppenheim 17)

In opposition, in the Let Us Now Praise Famous Men exhibition in the Foster Art Gallery at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, quotes from Agee’s narrative are intermingled with Evan’s photographs. I can assume that Agee’s text was added to punctuate Evan’s work and give more of a context for the pieces. Personally, I felt that they added to the power and the emotionality of the exhibit. However, it was Evan’s belief that his images should be allowed to form their own autonomous commentary. Since that belief was not unknown, I feel that the intermixing of his work with Agee’s for the exhibit is almost a dishonor to Evans as an artist. He had a creative vision for his works, that the images would create their own narrative, and I feel that that vision should not have been compromised.

Works Cited

Ophir, Ella Zohar. “Romantic Reverence and Modernist Representation: Vision, Power, and the Shattered Form of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” Twentieth Century Literature. 53.2 (2007). OmniFile Full Text Mega. Wilson Web. McIntyre Lib., UW Eau Claire. 10 Nov. 2010 .

Oppenheim, Irene. “Walker Evans II.” The Threepenny Review. 88 (2002): 17.

~Bailee Krull