Walker Evans Art Exhibit

Listening to Baldwin Lee speak on Friday was very beneficial to me for understanding what Walker Evans truly did, as well as giving a better insight when I look at photographs.

The first observation I had was when Lee was talking about looking and how it was harder than it looks. The photograph of the building in the south was a great starting example. I didn’t, at first, see anything out of the ordinary in the picture. I did appreciate the columns since I like Greek architecture and its archaic look, but what Baldwin Lee showed us brought the photograph to a new level. After noticing the writing that said “Signs,” I understood what message Evans was trying to get across. I then made the connection between the building sold by the once-wealthy man imagined in my head with the economic situation of the time period. The depression was partly caused by people spending more than what they actually could afford. The banks, being unregulated and a bit irresponsible themselves, gave out loans to people who would not be able to pay these loans back. This building was a great example of this: whoever had this building constructed may have been a big dreamer. Now that hard times had fallen upon the nation, they were now unable to afford this large building. It had to be sold, and was now a sign shop. This brings a whole new meaning to the picture that I would not have seen before. Thanks to Baldwin Lee, I was seeing what was difficult to see prior to his presentation.

Another observation I had was with the picture of the farmer’s wife. There were two pictures that were actually taken. One, as Baldwin Lee had shown us, was definitely a lot more cheerful looking than the other. I think each photograph tells its own, very different, story. The first, (and according to Lee) better known picture, was something the Farm Security Administration must have wanted to see. There was despair in the woman’s face. Times looked hard for her, and she had no hope left. But I liked the other one better, and I thought it was more representative of what life was life for many hard working Americans during this time. Of course the future looked bleak for many, since about 1 in 4 people were without jobs, but most people always have hope. And this woman had a family – well, at least her husband. So there was still something she had in her life, and the unpredictability of the future was always there to look forward to. This is just my interpretation. But what Lee said about Evans being a master at the portrait photograph did make sense. Evans managed to capture emotion with their poses. And there seems to be a lot of detail even with the limited amount of detail in the background – the subjects were able to tell their own story. I think that Evans had a lot of influence on contemporary portrait photographers, gathering from what I remember in class with photographers like Alec Soth that want to bring out the truth of the subject, and not necessarily just a good picture with a posed person and expression. That was ultimately why Evans was fired from the FSA, right? He wanted to show the truth, and not necessarily spread propaganda.