American PhotographsThe use of the visual arts to show us our own moral and economic situation has today fallen almost completely into the hands of the photographer. It is for him to fix and to reveal the whole aspect of our society: to record for use in the future our disasters and our claims to divinity. Walker Evans, photographing in New England or Louisiana, watching a Cuban political funeral or a Mississippi flood, working cautiously so as to disturb nothing in the normal atmosphere of the average place, can be considered a kind of disembodied, burrowing eye, a conspirator against time and its hammers. His photographs are the records of contemporary civilization in eastern American.~In the reproductions presented here, two large divisions have been made. The photographs are arranged to be seen in their given sequence. In the first part, which might be labeled "People by Photography," we have an aspect of America for which it would be difficult to claim too much. The physiognomy of a nation is laid on your table. In the second part are pictures which refer to the continuous fact of an indigenous American expression, whatever its source, whatever form it has taken, whether in sculpture, paint, or architecture: that native accent we find again in Kentucky mountain and cowboy ballads and in contemporary swing-music. --from the jacket of the 1938 edition~More than any other artist, Walker Evans invented the image of essential America that we have long since accepted as fact. His work, presented in stark and prototypical form in American Photographs, has made its impact not only on photography but also on modern literature, film, and the traditional visual arts. First published in 1938 by The Museum of Modern Art, American Photographs has often been out of print. This edition uses duotone plates made for the 1988 edition from original prints, and makes Evans' landmark book available again. The design and typography have been recreated as precisely as possible. |
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accidental ALABAMA American Photographs artist Atget attitude Baudelaire Ben Shahn BOARDING HOUSE Brady camera candid-camera CAT FISH 20 Coca-Cola Crane Curator David Rockefeller Department of Photography duller in surface duotone Eliot Emeritus Estate of Walker Evans's exhibition eye of Walker faces fact Farm Security Administration FIFTIETH-ANNIVERSARY EDITION films FISH 20 TROUT FISH CAT FISH FRAME HOUSE Gilman Paper Company graphic Henry Ives Cobb HOUSES IN VIRGINIA images John Szarkowski letterpress LICENSE PHOTO STUDIO LINCOLN KIRSTEIN machine MAIN STREET Middle West MINSTREL SHOWBILL MISSISSIPPI Modern Art Museum of Modern offset original negative original prints ORLEANS OSSINING paint Paper Company Collection Paris Paul Getty Museum photogra photographs are reproduced plates portrait present prestige prints reproduced RIVER FISH CAT Rockefeller 3rd ROYAL BAKING ROYAL salons SANDWICH 15 style TIN RELIC tion tography tonal structure Trustee VICKSBURG vision visual Walker Evans William Carlos Williams WOODEN GOTHIC HOUSE YORK