Walker Evans: A Biography

Walker Evan's photographs are American classics. His legendary images of southern sharecroppers in LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN and his pictures documenting the Depression era make up a haunting protrayal of the American soul. Until now, though, the man behind those well-known images has remained elusive, by his own design. In this first full biography, a leading authority on Evans penetrates the anonymity of his legendary photographs to reveal A VERY RICH AND INCLUSIVE LIFE OF FOOLISHNESS, CRUELTY, AND SPLENDOR, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. A portrait of an artist who profoundly influenced the generation of photographers who followed him, WALKER EVANS also traces the artstically fecund times that nurtured him. His career provides a NEW AND PENETRATING ILLUMINATION, ST LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, of everything from the newly established Museum of Modern Art to President Roosevelt's troubled Farm Security Adminsistratiion. WALKER EVANS is a thoroughly engrossing biography of a unique American master.

Walker Evans's haunting images of Southern sharecroppers in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men were as revolutionary in their time as James Agee's text, and are now deeply ingrained in the American consciousness. In the first full biography of this intriguing and enigmatic artist, a leading authority on Evans looks beyond the anonymity of his work to reveal the obsessions behind it.

Belinda Rathbone has written widely on modern photographers and organized exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art, the Polaroid Corporation, and the Spanish Ministry of Culture. She lives in Massachusetts and Scotland.