About the Artist

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  • Walker Evans. Self-Portrait. 1927. Gelatin silver print, 5 15/16 x 4" (15.0 x 10.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell. © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Digital image: Art Resource, NY

Meeting Points

Artist Chronology

November 3, 1903
Born
At location: Walker Evans
Saint Louis
September 1922–June 1923
Studies at Williams College for one year
At location: Walker Evans
Williamstown
1923–26
Works at a bookstore during the day and at The New York Public Library at night
At location: Walker Evans
New York
1926
Attends literary lectures at the Sorbonne, takes his first snapshots using a Kodak Vest Pocket camera, and works in Nadar's former studio
At location: Walker Evans
Paris
1927
Lives in New York; makes photographs of the city with a Leica
At location: Walker Evans
New York
1930
Publication of The Bridge; Evans's photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge illustrate Hart Crane's epic poem
Contributor: Walker Evans
Paris
1930
Walker Evans and Berenice Abbott meet
New York
1930
First solo exhibition, at the Harvard Society of Contemporary Arts
Participant: Walker Evans
Cambridge
November 1930
Photography 1930, organized by Lincoln Kerstein, at the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art
Cambridge
1931
Begins photographing Victorian architecture using a large-format camera
At location: Walker Evans
Massachusetts
April 18–May 8, 1931
Margaret Bourke-White, Ralph Steiner, Walker Evans: Photographs by Three Americans at John Becker Gallery
New York
1932
Exhibition of work by George Platt Lynes and Walker Evans at the Julien Levy Gallery
New York
1933
Walker Evans: Photographs of 19th Century Houses, the first monographic photography exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art
Participant: Walker Evans
New York
1935
Peter Sekaer becomes Walker Evans's assistant; they work on a portfolio of African sculpture photographs commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art
At location: Walker Evans, Peter Sekaer
New York
1935–37
Works as a staff photographer for the Resettlement Administration
At location: Walker Evans
Mississippi South Carolina Georgia
1935–36
Walker Evans and Peter Sekaer photograph together during trips for the Resettlement Agency
At location: Walker Evans, Peter Sekaer
Tupelo Vicksburg Bethlehem Bessemer Birmingham Atlanta Baton Rouge New Orleans
April 23–May 7, 1935
Photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Manuel Alvarez Bravo at the Julien Levy Gallery
New York
July–August 1936
Photographs sharecropper families for a Fortune magazine collaborative-reportage piece with writer James Agee, which becomes the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1941
At location: Walker Evans
Alabama
December 7, 1936–January 17, 1937
Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at The Museum of Modern Art
New York
March 17–April 18, 1937
Photography: 1839–1937, organized by Beaumont Newhall, at The Museum of Modern Art
New York
September 28–November 18, 1938
Walker Evans: American Photographs at The Museum of Modern Art
Participant: Walker Evans
New York
May 10–September 20, 1939
Art in Our Time: 10th Anniversary Exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art
New York
December 31, 1940–January 12, 1941
Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Aesthetics at The Museum of Modern Art
New York
1941
Completes the subway portraits with the aid of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and publishes them in the Cambridge Review
Contributor: Walker Evans
Cambridge
1943–45
Works as a staff writer for Time magazine
Contributor: Walker Evans
New York
1945–48
Works as a staff photographer for Fortune magazine
Contributor: Walker Evans
New York
June 20, 1945–June 23, 1946
The Museum Collection of Photographs at The Museum of Modern Art
New York
1947
Retrospective exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago
Participant: Walker Evans
Chicago
April 6–July 11, 1948
In and Out of Focus: A Survey of Today's Photography at The Museum of Modern Art
New York
1948–50
Apppointed Special Photographic Editor of Fortune magazine
At location: Walker Evans
New York
July 27–September 26, 1948
50 Photographs by 50 Photographers at The Museum of Modern Art
New York
1950–65
Works as associate editor of Fortune magazine
At location: Walker Evans
New York
1965–74
Professor of photography and graphic design in the School of Art and Architecture, Yale University; becomes Professor Emeritus in 1974
At location: Walker Evans
New Haven
April 10, 1975
Dies
At location: Walker Evans
New Haven

Walther Photographs

View this artist's works in MoMA's Online Collection
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