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Overview
American photographer Walker Evans (1903-75) is best known for his portraits of Depression-era America, a number of which were included in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), his storied collaboration with writer James Agee. Evans journeyed to Florida in 1942 at the behest of Karl Bickel, a retired journalist living in Sarasota. Bickel asked Evans to take photographs for The Mangrove Coast, a book he was writing about the long and colorful history of Florida's Gulf Coast.Featured in Walker Evans: Florida are the surprising images Evans took during his six-week stay in the area, which constitute a little-known chapter in Evans's distinguished career. Far from creating stereotypical postcard pictures of sandy beaches and palm trees, Evans captured a region of contradictions. Here in the nation's seaside vacationland, Evans focused his lens on decaying architecture, crowded street scenes, retirees, and numerous images of the animals, railroad cars, and circus wagons from Ringling Brothers Circus, whose winter home was in Sarasota.
Accompanying the fifty-two images in Walker Evans: Florida is novelist Robert Plunket's wry account of the human and geographic landscape of Florida. Plunket is a columnist and actor who lives in Sarasota and the author of My Search for Warren Harding and Love Junkie.
Synopsis
American photographer Walker Evans (1903-75) is best known for his portraits of Depression-era America, a number of which were included in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), his storied collaboration with writer James Agee. Evans journeyed to Florida in 1942 at the behest of Karl Bickel, a retired journalist living in Sarasota. Bickel asked Evans to take photographs for The Mangrove Coast, a book he was writing about the long and colorful history of Florida's Gulf Coast.
Featured in Walker Evans: Florida are the surprising images Evans took during his six-week stay in the area, which constitute a little-known chapter in Evans's distinguished career. Far from creating stereotypical postcard pictures of sandy beaches and palm trees, Evans captured a region of contradictions. Here in the nation's seaside vacationland, Evans focused his lens on decaying architecture, crowded street scenes, retirees, and numerous images of the animals, railroad cars, and circus wagons from Ringling Brothers Circus, whose winter home was in Sarasota.
Accompanying the fifty-two images in Walker Evans: Florida is novelist Robert Plunket's wry account of the human and geographic landscape of Florida. Plunket is a columnist and actor who lives in Sarasota and the author of My Search for Warren Harding and Love Junkie.
St. Petersburg Times
Evans' Florida photographs ... perhaps now finally will get their due.
Editorials
Miami Herald
A photo album charmingly stuffed with time-frozen memories of roadside bars, automobile graveyards, narrow main streets, trailer parks, fishing piers and reassuringly glitzy-free tourist attractions.St. Petersburg Times
Evans' Florida photographs ... perhaps now finally will get their due.Alonso Duralde
Advocate arts writer Robert Plunket's affectionate essay wraps through this fascinating photo book, capturing the late master photographer's funny, observant and occasionally surreal takes on the Sunshine State. Shot throughout the state in 1941, Evans's photographs are at once very much of their era and timeless.—The Advocate