Curator, Jodi Hauptman: Here you're looking at the results of a road trip of a threesome, Walker Evans, John Wheelwright, and Lincoln Kirstein.
Curator, Samantha Friedman: Lincoln Kirstein probably first met the photographer Walker Evans in 1930. Walker Evans contributed photographs and writing to Kirstein's journal, “The Hound and Horn.” And it wasn't long after that, that Kirstein engaged Evans on a project to photograph Victorian houses. The three men went in a car throughout New England and New York.
Jodi Hauptman: You can just imagine what they were talking about on the way, or the frustration of it taking too long, and wanting to move on to the next.
Samantha Friedman: Photographing these houses that Kirstein felt literally might fall down, and they describe the practice as feeling like thieves, trying to snap these houses while their owners weren't looking.
Jodi Hauptman: This sense of capturing something that was disappearing and fading away, that if you didn't take that picture, and you looked away, that thing would be gone.