Walker Evans

Walker Evans is one of the most vaunted American photographers in history. His name is evoked with reverence; his influence continues to shine through in work by contemporary photographers to this day, its imprimatur now firmly established in the canon of American photography. While Evans' most well-known output is the kind of straight work that [Lincoln] Kirstein described them as, these color photos in Lesy's book seem to be far more intimate and less studied, more lyrical and personal. There is a real warmth and intimacy to them that the instantaneous nature of the Polaroid helped achieve. But maybe they are also that way because they are the traces of a man on his way out of life embracing his last experiences and encounters. At any rate, I find them to be a penetrating look into the art of an American luminary. Lesy's book extends that feeling in its second half by compiling portraits and stories of key figures in Evans's life. Of particular interest to me are the color portraits that Evans made with the SX-70. These are presented along with other Polaroids that deal with some of the familiar themes his earlier work dealt with. But the portraits seem more vulnerable and intimate. Evans made these portraits at parties where he mingled with friends and students. If you're not careful, you'll find yourself crawling down a rabbit hole reading all of these stories. That's exactly what happened to me while paging through the book. I got so enthralled with the stories, it was an hour and a half before I lifted my head from the pages the first time I encountered the book! -- Kenneth Dickerman * Washington Post * For most viewers, Walker Evans will always be a man of the 1930s, an era-defining genius who lost his way as life changed. Yet his late work-and particularly the images he made using a Polaroid SX-70 in 1973-74, just before his death in 1975-has had admirers, passionate but rare. . . . Flat, deeply shadowed, eerie, they resonate with a desperate immediacy that seems more in keeping with contemporary sensibilities than does the classical austerity of the more renowned work of four decades earlier. -- Barry Schwabsky * Bookforum *